Overview
Correspondence, biographical material, and other papers of American writer and librarian, Richard Elliott.
Dates
- 1924-1972
Language of Materials
Materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.
Extent
.4 linear feet (1 box, 1 pf folder)This collection is comprised chiefly of correspondence with parents and friends, notably, poet John Ashbery; composer and author, Paul Bowles; and Father James Harold Flye. Other formats present include a drypoint (print), passport, photographs, printed ephemera, and a will.
Biographical / Historical
Richard James Elliott (1907-1974) was born in Windsor (N.Y.) where his parents owned the Windsor Whip Company. He studied piano at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and attended Dartmouth College (B.A. in English, 1930) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. 1931). He subsequently taught at St. Andrew's in Tennessee where he befriended the reknowned teacher, Father James Harold Flye.
Unhappy in teaching, Elliott took a post at the Brooklyn Public Library in 1937. He lived on Water Street in Brooklyn, earning a library science degree from Columbia University and associating with artists, writers, and musicians (many identified with the New York School), among them his neighbors, the writer and composer, Paul Bowles, and the set designer, Oliver Smith.
Elliott moved back to the family home in Windsor in 1947 to work on a novel, taking a position at the Harpur College Library. The publisher Alfred A. Knopf accepted a first draft of the novel but rejected the final version. Elliott published 9 Elaborations for 26 Characters
in Locus Solus (no. V, 1962) and a few other works, including a small volume of surrealist stories (A Song and a Diary for A) published shortly before his death. He remained in the historic family home; his health deteriorating after retirement in 1969, Elliott died in 1974.
Arrangement
Organized in three series:
- I. Correspondence
- II. Richard Elliott biographical material
- III. Other material
Physical Location
b, pf
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2005M-41. Purchased with funds from the Douglass Roby fund for the HCL; received: 2006 March 31.
Separated Materials
A copy of Charles Ingle's novel, The Waters of the End (Lippincott, 1953) inscribed by the author to Richard Elliott, removed for separate cataloging.
An unsigned, unnumbered copy of Elliott's A Song and a Diary for A (Adventures in Poetry, New York (N.Y.), 1973), sent to him by Larry Fagin, removed for separate cataloging.
Processing Information
Processed by: Melanie Wisner.
- Title
- Elliott, Richard. Richard Elliott papers, ca. 1924-1972: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02460
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
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Houghton_Library@harvard.edu