Inventory of the Robert Chester Ruark Papers, 1942-1965

Collection Number 4001

Manuscripts Department, University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

Manuscripts Department

CB#3926, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-1345

Fax: 919/962-3594

Email: mss@email.unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Descriptive Summary

Repository

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.

Creator

Ruark, Robert Chester, 1915-1965.

Title

Robert Chester Ruark Papers, 1942-1965

Call Number

4001

Language of Materials

Materials in English

Extent

Items: About 12,000

Linear Feet: 54.0

Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access

No restrictions.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Alan M. Ritchie in 1973-1974 and 1985 with subsequent additions from various sources.

Processing Information

Processed by: SHC Staff, 1975-1997

Encoded by: Jackie Dean, 1997

Revisions: Finding aid updated in January 2006 by Nancy Kaiser.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Robert Chester Ruark Papers #4001, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. Literary copyright is retained by the Ruark estate.

Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

Baruch, Bernard M. (Bernard Mannes), 1870-1965.

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961.

Hoover, J. Edgar (John Edgar), 1895-1972.

Matson, Harold, 1898-

Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-

Ritchie, Alan.

Ruark, Robert Chester, 1915-1965.

Ruark, Virginia Webb.

United States. Navy--Sea life.

Authors and publishers.

Authors--Political and social views.

Journalists--Correspondence.

Scrapbooks.

Africa--Description and travel.

Africa--Politics and government--To 1945.

Biographical Note

Robert Chester Ruark, Jr., was born in Wilmington, N.C., on 29 December 1915. He started college at age 15 at the University of North Carolina and was graduated with an A.B. in journalism in June 1935. After graduation, he worked as a cub reporter for the Hamlet News Messenger and later transferred to the Sanford Herald. During the next few years, Ruark worked as an accountant with the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C., enlisted as an ordinary seaman, and worked at the Washington Post and the Star before settling down at the Washington Daily News. In 1938, he married Virginia Webb, an interior decorator from Washington, D.C.

During World War II, Ruark joined the Navy as a gunnery officer and later became a press censor the Pacific. He returned to the Washington Daily News in 1945 to become a syndicated columnist. During this time, he began writing. His first novel, Grenadine Etching, was published in 1947. It was followed by I Didn't Know it Was Loaded (1948), One for the Road (1949), and Grenadine's Spawn (1952). Ruark also published articles regularly in the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Pic, Esquire, and Field and Stream.

After 1950, Ruark began spending time in Africa. In 1953, he published Horn of the Hunter, about an African safari, and Something of Value in 1955. Something of Value, based on the Mau Mau uprisings, was a major success. He made over a million dollars on the royalties and the film rights which he sold to Metro Goldwyn Mayer. After visiting North Carolina in 1957, Ruark permanently settled in Spain. He wrote three autobiographical novels, The Old Man and the Boy (1957), Poor No More (1959), and The Old Man's Boy Grows Older (1961). In 1962, he published another work on race relations in Africa, Uhuru and his last book was The Honey Badger published in 1964. Ruark died while receiving medical attention for an attack in June 1965.

From: Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Ed. William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Collection Overview

The bulk of the papers of writer  Robert Chester Ruark consists of typed drafts and copies of novels, short stories, newspaper and magazine articles, and screenplays, 1942-1945. Also included is professional and personal correspondence. Other papers relate to Ruark's service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and to his travels and safaris in different part of the world, particularly Africa. His correspondents included friends Ernest Hemingway (one letter and one note, 1953-1954), Bernard Baruch (66 letters, 1953-1965), Richard Nixon (6 letters, 1958-1960), and J. Edgar Hoover (4 letters, 1958-1959); associates, especially his secretary, Alan Ritchie, and his literary agent, Harold Matson; and relatives, especially his wife, Virginia Webb Ruark. The correspondence covers a wide range of personal and literary topics, including journalism, literary philosophy, and African politics. Also included are research materials, reviews, photographs, financial materials, and writings by others. Volumes are chiefly scrapbooks of columns and related clippings.

Note that the Ernest Hemingway letter and note are in folder 86.

Organization of Collection

1A. Correspondence, pre-1953
1B. Correspondence
2. Writings
3. Research Materials
4. Financial Materials
5. Photographs and Film
6. Volumes
7. Writings by Others
8. Supplementary Materials From Other Sources

Items Separated

Pictures (P-4001/1-109: photographs; P-4001/1-2: slide boxes; PA-4001/1: photograph album
Film (F-4001/1)
Volumes 4001/S1-23 and 79
Oversized papers (OP-4001/1A: 3 posters, certificate, book jacket; OP-4001/1B: 10 drawings, including four reproductions of original Ruark designs)

Detailed Description of the Collection