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Cummington Press records and Harry Duncan papers > Personal papers

Collection Stored Off-Site

All or portions of this collection are housed off-site. Materials can still be requested but researchers should expect a delay of up to two business days for retrieval.

Series 2
Personal papers, 1933-1998
Boxes Boxes 37-41; OP1

Scope and Content Note

The series consists of the personal papers of Harry Duncan, Katherine Frazier, and Paul Wightman Williams from 1933 to 1998. Harry Duncan's personal papers span from circa 1939 to 1998 and include personal and family correspondence, a notebook of manuscript writings, photographs from the Cummington School of Arts and Crafts, teaching materials and lectures, and writings. Of particular interest is a cache of letters to and from Katherine Frazier, the founder of the Cummington School of the Arts. They include discussions about the printing press, relationships with authors, and Katherine's illness. Duncan's writings include biographical essays, scholarly works, graduate essays, lectures, librettos, music scores, translations, and original poems. Many of the lectures focus on fine press printing and technology, while the essays are primarily literary criticism or discussions of politics and philosophy. The librettos are commissioned translations on classical and religious themes, and some of the music scores are written for the poems of W. B. Yeats.

Katherine Frazier's personal papers contain fiction and non-fiction writings. One manuscript is dated 1933, and the others are undated. The writings are experimental, blending prose and poetry and emphasizing the musicality of language, and cover topics such as art, war, mathematics, and philosophy.

The personal papers of Paul Wightman Williams span 1943 to 1954. In addition to a substantial collection of original poetry manuscripts, the papers include long letters from Williams' family, military correspondence, Cummington Press business, and visual materials such as architectural plans for a Cummington Press house and a photograph of original paintings.

Arrangement Note

Arranged by individual, then by record type.

Harry Duncan papers
Box Folder Content
37 1 Address Book
37 2 Award program, University of Nebraska, Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity, May 5, 1981
37 3 Bank records, December 1957-August 1959
37 4 Bill of sale for motor vehicle, 1957
37 5 Birth certificate, 1916
37 6 Cast List, Galileo [Harry Duncan's son, Guy Duncan]
37 7 Certificate, Kappa Tau Alpha membership, 1959
37 8 Contract, The Scarf, by Harry Duncan and Lee Hoiby, 1958
37 9 Copyright registration forms
37 10 Correspondence, personal, 1952-1994
37 11 Correspondence, to and from Katherine Frazier, 1943
37 12 Correspondence, to and from Katherine Frazier, 1944
37 13 Correspondence, to Nancy Duncan, 1997-2001
37 14 Cummington School of Arts and Crafts
37 15 Duncan, Grace, estate, 1967-1969
37 16 Honorary Doctorate degree, order of exercises, Grinnell College, 1973
37 17 Insurance policy, 1954
37 18 Iowa Public Employees Retirement System
37 19 Lawsuit, Harry A. Duncan vs. L.B. McDonald, 1976 [regarding car accident]
37 20 Music manuscript, by Dick Banks, for Harry Duncan, 1951
37 21 Notebook [notes on poetry, philosophy, and music]
38 1 Notes on printing
38 2 Royalty statements, 1956-1959
38 3 Social security, 1985
38 4 Taxes, 1956-1959
38 5 Teaching materials, 1939-1973, undated
38 6 Television documentary, planning meeting notes, 1989
38 7 University of Iowa, administrative material,
38 8 University of Iowa, pay stubs, January 1958-October 1959
38 9 University of Nebraska, contract, 1972
38 10 University of Nebraska, pay stubs, 1991-1992
38 11 Writings, "Allen Tate's False Nightmare," essay, undated
38 12 Writings, "Amor, che mori tua vertu da cielo," translation, undated
38 13 Writings, "A Pushy Apprentice," essay [Nebraska Book Arts Center] February 1992
38 14 Writings, "The Bear and the Fox: Kittredge on Chaucer," graduate essay, untitled
38 15 Writings, "Birth of Christ," translation for Christmas card, 1978
38 16 Writings, "The Book as Object," undated
38 17 Writings, "Book of the Dead," poem, 1956
38 18 Writings, "Books and the Intense Inane," article, undated
38 19 Writings, "Collins' Characters," graduate essay, undated
38 20 Writings, "Cross-Purposes," essay on the Cummington Press, undated
38 21 Writings, "The Cummington Press," author's proofs, undated
38 22 Writings, "For R. M.," poem typescript, 1957
38 23 Writings, "Forward," draft of forward to Printing on the Iron Handpress by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, 1998
38 24 Writings, fragments
38 25 Writings, "Fragments of Rhyme in Paradise Lost: A Note on the Study of Versification," graduate essay, undated
38 26 Writings, "A Glossary: To Dryden's Annus Mirabilis," graduate essay, undated
38 27 Writings, "Hindemith-Let's Build a Town," [translation of Paul Hindemith's opera, Wir Bauen eine Stadt], undated
38 28 Writings, "John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore," music score, undated
38 29 Writings, "Kaschei the Immortal," translation of libretto for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, 1963-1964
38 30 Writings, "Le Pont Mirabeau," translation of Apollinaire, manuscript, undated
38 31 Writings, "Lucian: The Service of the Destructive Element," graduate essay, undated
39 1 Writings, "Marie Antionette: An Incident of the French Revolution," essay, undated
39 2 Writings, The Man She Made, play, fragments only, typescript, undated
39 3 Writings, "The New England Novitiate," biographical essay and poems, undated
39 4 Writings, notes, undated ["Modern Language Notes and "TLS"]
39 5 Writings, "The Not-So-Greek Tradition," graduate essay, undated
39 6 Writings, "Pater's Four Essays on Wordsworth," graduate essay, undated
39 7 Writings, "Plans for Work," prospectus for "The Manual of Hand Printing," undated
39 8 Writings, "Plato's desire for security and stability," graduate essay, undated
39 9 Writings, poem fragments, undated
39 10 Writings, Poems and Translations, 1953-1955 [includes typescripts, correspondence with Charles Scribners's Sons Publishers, proofs, and contract]
39 11 Writings, "Poetry in the Dial, 1920-1929," graduate essay, undated
39 12 Writings, "Portrait in Brownstone," libretto for Paul Reif, 1963
39 13 Writings, review of Robert Frost and His Printers, typescript, 1985
39 14 Writings, "The Sacred Moon," music score, undated
39 15 Writings, "The Second Poem from Dante's Convivio," translation, 1956-1957, undated
39 16 Writings, "Shelley's Reputation Since the World War," graduate essay, untitled
39 17 Writings, "The Structure of The Prelude," graduate essay, undated
39 18 Writings, "The Three Daisy Millers," essay, undated
39 19 Writings, "Three Operas Minute," libretto translated by Harry Duncan, drafts, typescripts, correspondence, 1961-1963
39 20 Writings, "Two Pagan Monologues," 1982 [published by Juan Pascoe at The Taller Martin Pescador, Mexico]
39 21 Writings, untitled, biographical essay for Nebraska Book Arts Center, February 1991
39 22 Writings, untitled, graduate essay with literary graphs, undated
39 23 Writings, untitled lecture on books as objects, undated
39 24 Writings, untitled lecture on bookmaking, fragments, undated
39 25 Writings, untitled music scores, undated
39 26 Writings by others, Racine, Jean, Andromache, printed by the Anvil Press, with illustrations by Fritz Kredel, 1970 [includes photocopies of correspondence between Kredel and Carolyn Hammer of Anvil Press]
Katherine Frazier papers
40 1 Writings, Antiphonal Assize, manuscript draft, 1933
40 2 Writings, Antiphonal Assize, typescript draft, undated
40 3 Writings, "Art in Social Regeneration," undated
40 4 Writings, The Crooked Road, typescript draft, undated
40 5 Writings, "Fugue," fragments, undated
Paul Wightman Williams papers
41 1 Correspondence, 1943-1946
41 2 Correspondence 1947-1954, undated
41 3 Photograph, Paul Wightman Williams' paintings, "A list of paintings and drawings by Paul W. Williams," undated
41 4 "Plans of a house proposed for the Cummington Press," architectural drawing, 1945
OP1 9 Printed material, Greenfield Recorder-Gazette, 1956
41 5 Printed material, The Lyric vol. XXIII No. 3 Autumn Number, 1943 [published "Beyond the Night," a poem by Paul Wightman Williams]
OP1 10 Printed material, P-EM, Paper for Enlisted Men, Coast Artillery School, 3 issues featuring poems by Williams, 1943
41 6 Slides, Paul Wightman Williams gravesite
41 7 Writings, 21 Poems [bound draft], untitled typescript, "On a Print by Utamaro: II" [typescript poem], untitled
41 8 Writings, An Experiment, undated
OP1 11 Writings, My Country Dreams, 1950
41 9 Writings, Of Plastic Circumstance, undated
41 10 Writings, poems, typescripts, manuscript submissions, circa 1942-1943, undated
41 11 Writings, Poems and Prose, undated
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