Correspondence and Financial Papers, 1958-1966

This series includes federal and District of Columbia income tax returns and itemized lists of income, expenditures, and deductions. Also included are airplane tickets, travel itineraries, bank statements, a cancelled check, an insurance card, royalty statements, and store receipts as well as business and personal correspondence between Miss Porter and Mr. Perry.

The collection documents Miss Porter's professional and private life, including the dramatic change in her financial situation after the publication of her best-selling novel, Ship of Fools. Also included is information regarding awards, expenses, income, taxes, and advances from her publishers Harcourt, Brace and World and Little, Brown and Co. The series also documents Miss Porter's one-year residence in Europe; her regular monthly support of her older sister, Gay (Porter) Holloway; and her opinions of the Civil Rights movement and tax "revenooers," her term for the Internal Revenue Service.

Miss Porter filed estimated tax returns, which required her to pay installments throughout the year. Mr. Perry often reminded her to pay these. Many of Miss Porter's responses to the reminders expressed her confusion and frustration with the tax system. A note sent to Mr. Perry with a delinquency notice from the California Franchise Tax Board, dated December 9, 1963, is representative: "Here's that man with the sawed-off shotgun again! Do what you can, and blessings on your head!"

Miss Porter's final letter to Mr. Perry, dated September 5, 1966, explained her decision to seek help from a manager: "a CPA who also runs financial affairs for poor creatures like me, who can't run their own." The items in the collection are arranged chronologically and foldered by tax year.