E. L. Doctorow Papers
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Abstract
E. L. Doctorow was an American novelist whose work includes the novels Welcome to Hard Times, Big As Life, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, The Waterworks, and City of God; a play, Drinks Before Dinner; a collection of short fiction, Lives of the Poets, and a collection of non-fiction, Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution. He won numerous awards, including The National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Award in Arts and Letters from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the P.E.N./Faulkner Award, and held the Glucksman Chair in American Letters at New York University. The collection comprises correspondence, manuscripts, press, subject file, photographs, videos of film adaptations of novels, video of Doctorow literary appearances, and other documents related to his writing and personal life.
Biographical Note
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in New York City on January 6, 1931. The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he grew up on Eastburn Avenue in the Bronx and attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he showed an early interest in the arts evidenced by the inclusion of a poem, short story, and painting in his high school literary journal, Dynamo. These interests were further developed at Kenyon College, where he studied with John Crowe Ransom and shared the stage with Paul Newman and the page with fellow poet, James Wright. Doctorow graduated with honors from Kenyon College in 1952, receiving a B.A in Philosophy, before continuing with a year of graduate work at Columbia University. He married Helen Seltser amidst a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1953-55); they had three children: Jenny, Caroline, and Richard.
After a brief period as a reservations clerk at LaGuardia Airport, Doctorow began as a staff reader for Columbia Pictures and CBS Television (1956-1959) writing synopses and reader's reports for books considered as potential movie concepts. During this time, he experimented in multiple literary genres, producing a collection of short fiction, plays, and television scripts; however, it was his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times (1960), that proved most successful. Welcome to Hard Times was the product of his experience at Columbia Pictures, as he later told an interviewer: "I had to suffer one lousy western after another, and it occurred to me that I could lie about the West in a much more interesting way than any of these people were lying." Welcome to Hard Times was itself later adapted into a movie starring Henry Fonda.
From 1959-1964, Doctorow served as senior editor for the New American Library, and from 1964-1969 as the editor in chief of Dial Press, where he worked with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, and others. He left to finish his third novel, The Book of Daniel (1971), which won critical acclaim and a nomination for a National Book Award. The Book of Daniel is a fictionalized account of the Rosenberg children whose lives are haunted by the Atom Spy Trials of their parents and by the general paranoia introduced into American culture during the McCarthy-era. It was adapted into a movie in 1983 directed by Sidney Lumet.
After 1969, Doctorow devoted his time to writing and teaching. He was associated with several colleges and universities, including the University of California, Irvine; Sarah Lawrence College; Yale University Drama School; and Princeton University; however, he made his permanent home at New York University where he held the Glucksman Chair in American Letters. He was also a member of P.E.N American Center and was appointed as a member to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1984.
Ragtime (1975), written while Doctorow was a Guggenheim fellow and a Creative Artists Service fellow, started as one of the most highly anticipated and critically acclaimed novels of 1976 and ended by being one of the fastest selling and most popular books of all time. It interweaves historical personalities within a fictional narrative in order to expose the nascent lurking of a more ominous political and cultural threat that is always central to Doctorow's general critique of American life. This technique of commingling fact and fiction was sometimes interpreted as a departure from reality; yet Doctorow was always quick to defend the novelist's right to imagination: "What's real and what isn't? I used to know but I've forgotten. Let's just say that Ragtime is a mingling of fact and invention—a novelist's revenge on an age that celebrates nonfiction." Ragtime received the first National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1976 as well as the Arts and Letters Award given by the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters. It was adapted into a movie directed by Milos Forman in 1981 and into a Broadway musical in 1996.
Doctorow's subsequent novels would further refine his unique depiction of the history of New York City and the United States as a whole. Loon Lake (1980) is the story of a young man who cast adrift during the Depression years; World's Fair (1986) is a memoir of a 1930s New York City boyhood; and Billy Bathgate (1989) explores the underground of gangsterism and crime. Loon Lake was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and was nominated for the National Book Award; World's Fair was the winner of the 1986 National Book Award; Billy Bathgate was the winner of the 1990 P.E.N./Faulkner Award and was adapted into a movie by Tom Stoppard directed by Robert Benton. These books were followed by The Waterworks (1994), an 1870s Manhattan mystery, and City of God (2000), a spiritual quest set at the turn of the 20th Century, and The March (2005), a fictionalized depiction of Sherman's March to the Sea. The latter won the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Award, the 2005 National Book Critics Award, and was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize and the 2005 National Book Award.
Doctorow's other works include a play, Drinks Before Dinner (1979), first produced by Joseph Papp under the direction of Mike Nichols, and three works of short fiction, Lives of the Poets (1984), Sweet Land Stories (2004), and All the Time in the World (2011). His final novel, Andrew's Brain (2014), confronts how the nature of human cognition inhibits the search for truth. Additionally, Doctorow wrote a number of non-fiction pieces for various periodicals, including The New York Times, The Nation, Newsday, Playboy, Harper's, and The New Yorker. In 1993, he published a collection of these pieces in Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution. He continued to write until his death of lung cancer in 2015 at age 84.
Sources: 1 Yardley, Jonathan, "Mr. Ragtime," The Miami Herald, 21 December 1975.2 Wutz, Michael, "An Interview with E.L. Doctorow," Weber Studies 11 (Winter, 1994).3 Baker, John F., "PW Interviews: E.L. Doctorow," Publisher's Weekly 207 (30 June 1975).4 Weber, Bruce, "E.L. Doctorow Dies at 84; Literary Time Traveler Stirred Past Into Fiction," New York Times 21 July 2015: Online.
Arrangement
Folders are arranged alphabetically or chronologically see "series description."
The files are grouped into 16 series: I. Correspondence; II: Manuscripts; III: Manuscripts by Others; IV: Press, Publicity, Recognition; V: Business / Administrative Files; VI: Subject Files; VII: Juvenilia; VIII: Family and Biographical Files; IX: Photographs; X: Travel; XI: Other Media; XII: Periodicals; XIII: Helen Henslee Doctorow; XIV: Ephemera; XV: New York University Creative Writing Program Files; and XVI: Printed Material
Scope and Content Note
SERIES DESCRIPTION
Series I: Correspondence
This series contains Doctorow's correspondence arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Fan mail, administrative correspondence with students, requests for autographs, and other miscellaneous or quotidian correspondences are grouped alphabetically by the first letter of the correspondents last name; **all other correspondence is foldered individually by correspondent.
Doctorow's correspondence is unique in that he kept a significant amount of his out-going correspondence. This out-going correspondence is filed with the in-coming correspondence and not otherwise indicated. An attempt has been made to keep in-coming and out-going correspondence together if related. Unidentified correspondence, both to and from Doctorow, is grouped together at the end of the series.
Series XIII, Subseries A, containing the correspondence of Helen Henslee, also contains social correspondence to the Doctorow family, thus supplementing series 1.
Series II: Manuscripts
Series II, Subseries A: Novels
This subseries contains manuscripts of Doctorow's full-length novels arranged chronologically by publication date. The manuscript files are comprised of notes, drafts, galleys, and proofs, many of which are corrected and edited, thus demonstrating the process of novel writing.
Series II, Subseries B: Short Fiction
This subseries contains manuscripts of Doctorow's short fiction, including short stories and novellas, arranged alphabetically by title. The Lives of the Poets, Doctorow's book-length collection of short fiction, is included in this series, as well as other independently written short fiction.
Series II, Subseries C: Non-Fiction
This subseries contains manuscripts of Doctorow's non-fiction, arranged chronologically for dated material and alphabetically for undated material. Doctorow's book-length collection of non-fiction, Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution, begins the series.
Series II, Subseries D: Plays
This subseries contains manuscripts of Doctorow's play, Drinks Before Dinner.
Series II, Subseries E: Miscellaneous Notes and Fragments
This subseries contains miscellaneous notes and fragments found throughout the Doctorow papers. These notes and fragments were collected as they appeared, but no coherent order is evident. Four folders in this series came from a file folder of miscellaneous notes and fragments assembled by Doctorow; these are kept together in their original order and are marked as such in the box and folder list.
Series III: Manuscripts By Others
This series contains manuscripts written by other authors that were collected by Doctorow. These manuscripts are arranged in alphabetical order by author.
Series IV: Press, Publicity, Recognition
Series IV, Subseries A: Press and Publicity
This subseries contains all press and publicity, including promotional materials, book reviews, and articles, regarding Doctorow's literary projects arranged alphabetically by project. General articles about Doctorow, non-English-language articles, and mentions of Doctorow follow these files.
Series IV, Subseries B: Scholarly Works
This subseries contains scholarly works about Doctorow arranged alphabetically by author.
Series IV, Subseries C: Interviews
This subseries contains Doctorow interviews arranged chronologically.
Series IV, Subseries D: Awards
This subseries contains files related to Doctorow's literary awards.
Series V: Business / Administrative Files
This series contains the general business files arranged alphabetically by subject, including: calendars, notebooks, contracts, investments, real estate, publishers' catalogues, and files from Booknet, a proposed cable channel dedicated to books of which Doctorow was one of the founding members.
Series VI: Subject Files
This series contains information collected by Doctorow on various subjects arranged alphabetically by subject. Some of these subjects contain source material for Doctorow's fiction and non-fiction. Also included are subjects relating to authors, poets, scientists, and philosophers, as well as Doctorow's political interests and involvements.
Series VII: Juvenilia
This series contains Doctorow's juvenilia, loosely defined as all work produced before the publication of his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times. Most of these materials were originally kept together in a box marked "Juvenilia". This series includes: literary journals with contributions by Doctorow from high school and college, high school and college commencement programs, college papers, reader's synopses and reports produced while Doctorow was employed by Columbia Pictures and CBS, and manuscript drafts of plays, short fiction, novellas, and television screenplays.
Series VIII: Family and Biographical Files
This series contains files relating to Doctorow's family, in addition to short biographical pieces.
Series IX: Photographs
This series contains both press and publicity photographs and photographs of Doctorow's friends and family. Photographs that were attached to letters or other documents have been included in those series.
Series X: Travel
This series contains all documents relating to Doctorow's business and personal travel. The files are arranged chronologically.
Series XI: Other Media
This series contains a small collection of other media, including an LP, cassette tapes, and videotapes. These materials may not be available for viewing yet, please check with the Fales Archivist.
Series XII: Periodicals
This series contains three boxes of periodicals. All relevant information has been copied from these periodicals and interfiled into the appropriate series. These hard copy versions are unfoldered and not arranged in any order.
Series XIII: Helen Henslee Doctorow
This series contains the papers of Doctorow's wife, who writes under the pen name, Helen Henslee.
Series XIII, Subseries A: Correspondence
This subseries contains the correspondence of Helen Henslee Doctorow, as well as general social correspondence to the Doctorow family, arranged alphabetically by correspondent.
Series XIII, Subseries B: Manuscripts
This subseries contains the manuscripts of Helen Henslee Doctorow, including: her novel, Pretty Redwing, and its screenplay adaptation, Flora; various articles; notebooks, notes and fragments.
Series XIII, Subseries C: General Files
This subseries contains the general files of Helen Henslee Doctorow, which include calendars, contracts, financial papers, invitations and guest lists for Doctorow parties, periodicals, and publishers' catalogues.
February Accretion to the E.L. Doctorow Papers
This accretion contains books and pamphlets from E.L Doctorow's personal library on topics including American history, writing and communism. These materials do not contain any marginalia or markings. There is also a VHS present with two recorded television programs on it (potentially in Czech).
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, fales.library@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596. Unprocessed accretions to the collection are closed until processed.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use (including permission to photocopy/reproduce) materials must be secured from the copyright holder. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, fales.library@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); E. L. Doctorow Papers; MSS 056; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The E.L. Doctorow Papers were donated to the Fales Library in September 2001 by E.L. Doctorow. Further additions to the collection were donated in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017,2018, and 2019.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers.
Separated Material
There is no information about materials that are associated by provenance to the described materials that have been physically separated or removed.
About this Guide
Processing Information
In August 2017, one item was prepared to be moved to offsite art storage in September 2017. In February 2022, box numbers of 2015 accretions were updated where already integrated into existing series.
