Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library collection on David Gascoyne
Overview
Personal and professional papers of Surrealist poet and translator David Gascoyne (1916-2001) and the papers of Gascoyne's bibliographer Colin Benford.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1933-2005, undated
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
This collection is not housed at the Houghton Library but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
1.25 linear feet (3 boxes)The Gascoyne papers consist of photographs, watercolors, compositions and notebooks, personal and professional correspondence, a family passport, readings and publications announcements, printed works, reviews of Gascoyne’s work, and ephemera. Personal correspondence includes letters from Gascoyne’s wife, Judy and mother, Winifred.
The collection also includes typescript and galley proofs of a bibliography by Colin Benford, and a file of Benford’s correspondence created while preparing the Gascoyne bibliography.
Biographical / Historical
David Gascoyne was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement and a translator of French Surrealist poetry. A precocious teenager, Gascoyne published his first book of poetry, Roman Balcony, at sixteen. A year later he visited France and was introduced to Surrealism. Gascoyne became friends with Surrealist luminaries Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and André Breton. However, his time in this circle was short lived. Gascoyne was summarily excluded upon the publication of his third volume of poetry, Poems 1937-42, which took on a more religious tone.
Gascoyne suffered multiple mental breakdowns in his lifetime, in part due to amphetamine abuse. While at a psychiatric hospital on the Isle of Wight Gascoyne met a lifelong friend and companion in Judy Lewis--a hospital volunteer. They were married in 1975.
Colin Benford was Gascoyne’s bibliographer, enthusiast, and friend. The papers were later collected by the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library.
Arrangement
Arranged into the following series: I. Gascoyne papers ; II. Benford bibliography ; III. Benford correspondence
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2015M-85. Deposited by Julio Mario Santo Domingo III; received: 2012 April. Forms part of the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection
Processing Information
Processed by Rachel Parker, 2018
- Title
- Santo Domingo, Julio Mario, collector. Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library on David Gascoyne, 1941-2005, undated (MS Eng 1745): Guide.
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Date
- 2018 July 25
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02985
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.
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu