Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION
#4110
LEWIS GASTON LEARY PAPERS
Inventory
Abstract: Lewis Gaston Leary was an English professor and
scholar. Leary taught English at the University of
Miami, 1935-1941; Duke University, 1941-1951; Columbia
University, 1951-1968, serving as department chairman,
1962-1968; and was William Rand Kenan Professor of
English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, 1968-1976.
Correspondence, subject files, writings, and
photographs of Leary and others. Correspondence is
with writers and other critics and scholars. It
includes letters, 1954 and 1972 (?), from Robert Penn
Warren (1905- ); 1928-1964, from Marc Van Doren (1894-
1972); and 1944-1968, from Lionel Trilling (1905-
1975). These letters discuss academic and critical
matters, and include some letters from Van Doren and
Trilling to persons other than Leary. Also included
are letters, 1952-1970, between Leary and poet Ezra
Pound and others related to the publication of books
and articles by Leary about Pound's work; and letters,
1909-1932, to A. H. Thorndike (1871-1933), professor
of English at Columbia University, concerning academic
and scholarly matters. Subject files deal largely
with Leary's experiences as a faculty member,
especially at Columbia University.
Online Catalog Terms:
American poetry--History and criticism.
College teachers--United States--History--20th century.
Columbia University--Faculty--History--20th century.
Critics--United States--History--20th century.
Duke University--Faculty--History--20th century.
Leary, Lewis Gaston, 1906- .
Literature--History and criticism.
Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972.
Trilling, Lionel, 1905-1975.
University of Miami--Faculty--History--20th century.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Faculty--
History--20th century.
Van Doren, Mark, 1894-1972.
Warren, Robert Penn, 1905- .
Size: About 600 items (1.5 linear feet).
Provenance: Received from Lewis Leary of Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, in November 1976 and July 1985.
Access: No restrictions
Copyright: Retained by the authors of items in these papers, or
their descendants, as stipulated by United States
copyright law.
Table of Contents:
Biographical Note
Series Descriptions
Series 1. General Correspondence
Series 2. Subject Files
Series 3. Writings
Series 4. Pictures
Shelf List
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Lewis Gaston Leary, Jr., son of Lewis Gaston, a Presbyterian
clergyman, and Beatrice Knight Leary, was born 18 April 1906 in
Blauvelt, New York. In 1928, he received a B.S. in education
from the University of Vermont. He received an M.A. in English
in 1932 and a Ph.D. in 1941, both from Columbia University. On 7
March 1932, he married Mary Warren Hudson. They had two
children, Carolyn Warren (Mrs. William Bartholet) and Martha
Hudson (Mrs. Ted Allen).
Leary was an instructor in English at the American University
of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, from 1928 to 1931. He taught English
at the University of Miami from 1935 to 1941 and at Duke
University, 1941-1951. In 1951, he returned to Columbia
University as a professor of English, serving as chairman of the
Department of English and Comparative Literature from 1962 to
1968. He was William Rand Kenan Professor of English at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1968 until his
retirement in 1976. In 1976, Leary received the Jay B. Hubbell
Award for distinguished service in the study of American
literature, presented by the American Literature Section of the
Modern Language Association.
Leary wrote or edited numerous books on American authors,
including works on Philip Freneau, Nathaniel Tucker, Mark Twain,
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ezra Pound, Herman Melville, Henry David
Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Faulkner.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1. General Correspondence
1909-1985 and undated. About 175 items
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Mostly professional correspondence of Lewis Leary. This
series also contains several letters to his wife Mary Warren.
Included is some correspondence of A. H. (Ashley Horace)
Thorndike (1871-1933), professor of English at Columbia
University, 1906-1933. Folder 53 also contains correspondence
with Thorndike about Lionel Trilling.
Series 2 and 3 also contain items of correspondence. Letters
from Ezra Pound are in Series 2, folder 75.
Folder 1 Adkens, Nelson
2 Aldridge, John W.
3 Allen, Hervey
Anderson, Quentin
4 Atkinson, Brooks and Oriana
5 Auslander, Joe
6-7 Auchard, John
8 Ballentine, Lesley
Barrett, Clifton Waller
9 Barzun, Jacques
10 Bayes, Ron
Becontel, Garvan
Benet, Lillian M.
Benjamin, Henry R.
11 Bingham, Millicent
12 Blackmur, R. P.
Blanck, Jacob
13 Bohr, Niels
14 Bonnerot(?), L.
Boyle, Kay
Brawell(?), Katie
Bronk, Detlev W.
15 Brown, Herbert
Bush, Douglas
Bynner, Witter
16 Calliatore, Vera
Cane, Melville
17 Chase, Richard
18 Clemens, Cyril
19 Columbia University
Crane, Joan St. C.
20 Davenport, Guy
21 Davis, John W.
Deering, James
Deutsch, Babette
22 Edel, Leon
Eliot, T. S. (carbon copy transcription of
a letter to the president of Columbia
University, 16 March 1953)
23 Ervin, Sam J., Jr.
Feinberg, Charles E.
24 Fiedler, Leslie A.
25 Foerster, Norman
Fraenkel, George K.
26 Gardner, John W.
Gibson, El.
Glueck, Nelson
27 Gohdes, Clarence
Goldberg, Maxwell
Greel, Cabell,
Green, Paul
Graham, Frank Porter
28 Harmon, William
Harper, Howard
Highsmith, Albert W.
Hilles, Frederick W.
Hope, A. D.
House, Robert B.
Howard, Leon
Howe, Irving
29 Hubbell, Jay B.
30 Humphreys, J. R.
Huxley, Julian
31 Ihara, T.
Johnson, Lyndon B.
J., H. M.
32 Kazin, Alfred
Kennedy, Sighle
33 Kirk, Grayson
34 Knopf, Alfred
Krutch, Joseph Wood
35 Laing, Alexander
Lanaban, Scottie
Lang, Paul H.
36 Levin, Harry
37 Lewis, Richard W. B.
Livingston, R. W.
38 Lynes, Russell
Lytle, Andrew
39 MacCracken, H. N.
40 MacLeish, Archibald
41 Mabbott, Thomas O.
Malik, Charles
Merwin, W. S.
42 Milford, Nancy
Miller, Henry
Miller, J. Hillis
Miller, Perry
43 Moers, Ellen
Moore, Douglas
44 Moore, Merrill
45 Nagel, Ernest
Nin, Anais
O'Fallen, Dan
46 Paltsits, Victor Hugo
Panofsky, Erwin
Pharr, Bob
47 Pond, Wayne J.
Potter, Charles Francis
Pound, Omar S.
Quine, Willard V.
48 Radhakrishnan, S.
Riesman, David
Rohde, Bryan
Royster Vermont
Rusk, Clara and Ralph
49 Sanford, Terry
Schorer, Mark
Sessions, Roger
Shipton, Clifford K.
50 Silver, Rollo G
Sinclair, Upton
Sitterson, J. Carlyle
51 Steele, Max
Stovall, Floyd
Stuart, Tesse
Sweeney, James Johnson
52 Tate, Allen
53 Thorndike, A. H.
54 Trilling, Lionel
55 Van Doren, Carl, Charles, and Mark
56 Van Gogh, Vincent W.
57 Warren, Austin
58 Warren, Robert Penn
59 Weismiller, Edward
Weyl, Hermann
60 White, E. B.
Whitman, Alden
Wright, Richard
61 Unidentified correspondents
Series 2. Subject Files
1920-1984. About 200 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Correspondence and other items relating primarily to Lewis
Leary's career as an English professor and to his tenure at
various universities. The original folder names have been
maintained.
Folder 62 Early: Birth-1928
63-64 Looking for a job, 1931-34
65 Miscellaneous activities while at
University of Miami, 1935-1941
66 Miscellaneous activities while at Duke,
1941-1950
67-70 Miscellaneous activities while at
Columbia, 1950-1968
71 Letters re chairmanship at Columbia,
April, 1962
72 Miscellaneous activities while at UNC,
1968-1976
73 After retirement, 1976-
74 SAR/DAR qualifications
75 Pound, Ezra, correspondence with
76 Pound, Ezra, letters about, 1957-1970
77 Barlow, Joel
Series 3. Writings
1933-1984. About 200 items
Arrangement: chronological.
Correspondence relating to That Rascal Freneau (1941), a
photocopy typescript of The Book-Peddling Parson (1984), and
articles and book reviews by Lewis Leary.
Folder 78-81 That Rascal Freneau
82-84 The Book-Peddling Parson
85 Other writings
Series 4. Pictures
1926-1982 and undated. 41 items
Mostly black-and-white photographs of Lewis Leary and others.
An item list follows.
Folder 1.
P-4110/1. Lewis Gaston Leary (father of Lewis Leary), ca.
1926
P-4110/2. Blauvelt Church, Blauvelt, New York
P-4110/3. Huguenot Memorial Church, Pelham Manor, New York
P-4110/4-6. Pelham Manor Church, exterior
P-4110/7. Pelham Manor Church, interior
Folder 2.
P-4110/8. Pelham High School football team, 1922
P-4110/9. Pelham High School students, 1922
P-4110/10. Pelham High School football team, 1923
P-4110/11. Magnet staff, 1922-23
P-4110/12. Magnet staff, 1923
P-4110/13. Pelham High School boys track tesm, 1923
P-4110/14. Counsellors at Camp Winona, Denmark, Maine, Summer
1924(?)
P-4110/15. University of Vermont, track team, 1926
P-4110/16. Lewis Leary, ca. 1926
P-4110/17. Vermont vs. Columbia football game, 1927
P-4110/18. Lewis and Mary Warren Leary, July 1937
Folder 3.
P-4110/19. Second Blerancourt Seminar on American Literature,
2-4 May 1958 (unidentified man, Richard Wright,
Lewis Leary, Robert Hapgood)
P-4110/20. Second Blerancourt Seminar on American
Literature, 2-4 May 1958 (unidentified student,
Lewis Leary, unidentified student)
P-4110/21. Second Blerancourt Seminar on American
Literature, 2-4 May 1958 (Robert Hapgood, Leonard
Zenger, Richard Wright, Charles Cluld Waleult,
Lewis Leary)
P-4110/22. Second Blerancourt Seminar on American
Literature, 2-4 May 1958 (unidentifed people)
Folder 4.
P-4110/23. Lewis Leary and unidentified men, Albany, 1963
P-4110/24. Lewis Leary and alumni marshall hooding
President of Puerto Rico, Columbia Commencement,
June 1963
P-4110/25. Lewis Leary, Chancellor Erhardt of Germany,
Columbia University President Grayson Kirk,
Columbia University Commencement, June 1965
P-4110/26. Mary Bunting, John T. Fey, Leo A. Rudloff,
William Lockwood, Faye Crabbe, Nutt Burbank, Lewis
Leary, and David Bosworth, Honorary degree
recipients, University of Vermont, 9 June 1963
P-4110/27. Columbia secretaries, 1967
P-4110/28. Homer and Betty Brown, Lewis and Mary Warren
Leary, English Department party, 1966
Folder 5.
P-4110/29-36. Lewis Leary's farewell dinner, Columbia
University, 1968
Folder 6.
P-4110/37. Lewis Leary, ca. 1968
P-4110/38. Group photograph, International Association of
University Professors of English, 9th Triennial
Conference, UCLA, 19-24 August 1974
P-4110/39. Group photograph, Kenan professors' meeting,
Spring 1982
P-411-/40-41. Group photographs, English Department,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
SHELF LIST
Box 1 (only)
Items separated:
P-4110/1-41