Finding Aid for the Jan Cox Speas Manuscript, 1954
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Jan Cox Speas, an alumna of Woman's College (now UNCG), was well known for her historical romances during the 1950s and 1960s. This collection includes the typescript carbon for Speas' novel, Bride of the MacHugh.
MSS 011
1 half size archival box; .25 linear ft.; 358 leaves.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Jan Cox Speas Manuscript (MSS 011), University Archives and Manuscripts, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Gift of the author, 1955.
Short story writer and novelist Jan Cox Speas was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1925. She studied creative writing with Hiram Haydn at Woman's College (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, or UNCG), from which she graduated in 1945. She returned to UNCG and secured her master's degree in English in 1964, after which she began teaching at Guilford College, also in Greensboro. Speas was well known for her historical romances during the 1950s and 1960s. Following her death from a heart attack in 1971, Avon Publications brought out paperback editions of her romances. By 1978 there were more than a million copies of her books in print. The author was married to John Speas; they lived in Greensboro and had two children, Cynthia and Gregory.
This collection includes the typescript carbon for Speas' novel, Bride of the MacHugh (Bobbs-Merrill, 1954). There are twenty-one chapters in four folders. Bride of the MacHugh is set in early 17th-century Scotland, and like much of Speas' work reflects her interest in the Scottish highlanders from whom her own family descended.
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