The Desmond Willson papers consist of fifteen letters and cards Porter wrote to Desmond Willson between June 10, 1961, and December 15, 1967, eight clippings from newspapers and magazines published between November 25, 1956, and August 20, 1995, and a copy of a privately published holiday carol.
This collection is open for research.
This series consists of five postcards, five handwritten letters, and five typed letters Porter wrote Willson between June 10, 1961, and December 15, 1967. Although one of the handwritten letters is undated, it is clear from the context that it was written between 1961 and 1967. The subjects of Porter's correspondence to Willson include Jordan Pecile, Barbara Thompson Mueenuddin, Daniyal Mueenuddin, the completion and publication of Ship of Fools, her travel and residence in France and Italy, her health, and political, racial, and religious issues. Arrangement is chronological.
The Porter clippings Willson collected include a copy of Barbara Thompson's "Katherine Anne Porter: Mistress of the Grand Gesture" (Washington Post and Times Herald, November 25, 1956), a 1973 New York Post article, four obituaries (1980), and a review of Janis Stout's Katherine Anne Porter: A Sense of the Times (1995). The undated clipping is a portion of a circa 1962 article titled "Fiction Writers Come Back into Their Own: Vintage Year for U. S. Novel." The clippings are arranged in chronological order.
Porter inscribed a copy of Sweet Was the Song, an old English Christmas carol, with illustrations and text drawn by Ben Shahn (Roosevelt, New Jersey: Ben Shahn, 1956), to Willson: "For Desmond at/Christmas 1961/From Katherine Anne."
Desmond Willson Papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.
Desmond Willson Papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/14077 Accessed January 21, 2025.
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