New York Public Library Acquires Papers of E. Annie Proulx
Author says papers will help those studying “intellectual property and literary work”
-- Library Journal, 11/3/2009
The New York Public Library has acquired a career’s worth of research notes, book drafts, and other materials of E. Annie Proulx, the novelist who authored The Shipping News, among other works. The trove, housed in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, includes:
- 200 pages of short stories, essays, poems and screenplays
- 145 pages of preparatory notes and research
- 10,200+ pages of typescript
- 2100 galley proofs
- 4500+ pages of correspondence
"To me there is an odd sense of balance that material dealing with some of the most rural landscapes in North America will reside in our major city,” Proulx commented.
She added that the collection would have an impact beyond tracking an author's creativity: “Aside from the pages directly related to my writing, the letters, emails, financial reports to and from agents, publishers, editors and translators may be useful to future historians and scholars examining this period in American publishing and literature. We are currently undergoing major changes in the way we regard intellectual property and literary work; some of anxieties of that metamorphosis are reflected in my archive.”
