Finding Aid for the Robert W. Watson Papers, 1948-1980
For reference questions, please contact university_manuscripts@uncg.edu.
Robert W. Watson (1925- ) was on the English Department faculty at UNCG from 1953 until his retirement in 1987. He received many literary honors and was the main architect of UNCG's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.
The Robert W. Watson Papers date from 1948 to 1980 and contain manuscripts, typescripts, publisher's proofs and galleys, clippings, correspondence, photographs, and reviews.
MSS 084
5 linear feet, 10 archival boxes.
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.
[Identification of item], Robert W. Watson Manuscripts (MSS 084), University Archives and Manuscripts, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Gift of Robert W. Watson, August 1985.
Robert W. Watson (1925- ) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and educated at Williams College and Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his doctorate in 1955. He was on the English Department faculty at UNCG from 1953 until his retirement in 1987. Some of Watson’s awards and honors include: the American Scholar Poetry Prize (1959), a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship (1974-1975), and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1977). Watson was the main architect of UNCG's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, considered one of the best in the nation. In 1966 Watson and graduate writing student Lawrence Judson Reynolds began the Greensboro Review, a respected literary journal that has since earned a national reputation.
The Robert W. Watson Manuscripts date from 1948 to 1980 and contain mManuscripts, typescripts, publisher's proofs and galleys, clippings, correspondence, photographs, and reviews.
The arrangement of the manuscripts is that of their creator. First are poems, then collections of poems, followed by novels, lectures, essays, short stories, correspondence and reviews. Within each of these divisions the manuscripts are arranged either alphabetically by title or chronologically.
The poetry consists of unsigned and undated manuscripts and typescripts with corrections, notes, and additions by the author. Poems that are unfinished or early drafts are arranged alphabetically by title or first line when the title is not given. The earliest versions are presented first, but this order may be approximate. Unsigned and undated manuscripts, typescripts, and publisher’s proofs of poems that appeared in published collections are filed under the title of the book.
Unsigned and undated typescripts and proofs of the novels Three Sides of the Mirror (Putnam’s, 1966) and Lily Lang (St. Martin’s, 1977) and the typescript for the unpublished Billy are arranged alphabetically by title. Lecture and short story manuscripts and typescripts are alphabetically arranged under the title. Essays and papers are arranged chronologically.
Correspondence is divided into three groups: permissions for the first collection of poetry, 1959-1964; letters about a planned book about a New York policewoman, 1966; and letters about an article describing the Klan-Nazi shooting in Greensboro, 1975-1980. Reviews and articles by and about the author are arranged chronologically.
Box 1
Poems A-K
Box 2
Poems L-T
Box 3
Poems U-Z and fragments
Box 4
Advantages of Dark (poems) - N.Y., Atheneum, 1966
Christmas in Las Vegas (poems) - N.Y., Atheneum, 1971
Box 5
Night Blooming Cactus (poems) - N.Y., Atheneum, 1980
Odalisque and Other Poems (unpublished as a title)
NB: the poem, "Odalisque" won second place in the American Scholar poetry contest in 1959
A Paper Horse (poems) - N.Y., Atheneum, 1962
Selected Poems N.Y., Atheneum, 1974
Box 6
Billy (unpublished novel)
Lily Lang (novel) N.Y., St. Martin's, 1977
Box 7
Three Sides of the Mirror (novel) N.Y., Putnam's, 1966
Box 8
Dramatic works: "The Plot against the King"/"A Plot in the Palace"; fragments of larger (?) works: ("The Hoax", "The Marble Palace", "Bert's Luck", "Colonel Orange", "Night Blooming Cactus" (essay); "A Tale of a Coat"; untitled pieces and fragments
Box 9
Diary (March 4, 1949-April 12, 1951); essays including "A Jarrell Primer"; "Randall Jarrell, The Last Years" and other fragments on Jarrell; miscellaneous writings on textbooks, statistics, Hesse, William Morris, anti-art, Southern evangelism and the shootout in Greensboro on November 3, 1979 between members of the National Socialist Party of America and the Communist Workers' Party (U.S.)
Box 10
Correspondence, reviews, photographs
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