Bryant Mangum American literature collection, 1920/2022

Access and use

Location of collection:
Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library
James Branch Cabell Library
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842003
901 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284-2003
Contact for questions and access:
POC: SCA Staff
Phone: (804) 828-1108
Fax: (804) 828-0151
Restrictions:

This collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Bryant Mangum American literature collection, 1920-2022, Collection # M 579, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Summary

Extent:
1.71 Linear Feet 1 letter document box, 1 half-size letter document box, and a flat file box.
Creator:
Mangum, Bryant, 1943- and Mangum, Bryant, 1943-
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Bryant Mangum American literature collection, 1920-2022, Collection # M 579, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

The Bryant Mangum American literature collection contains materials related to Bryant Mangum's scholarship on Alice Adams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Irwin Shaw, as well as early published works by Alice Adams and F. Scott Fitzgerald in magazines.

This collection includes copies of Mangum's book chapters, journal aticles, book reviews, fiction, and nonfiction, that he had bound into books. Related to Alice Adams, there is a typescript of her unpublished novel The Impersonators, unpublished poems, copies of her work that were published in magazines but uncollected in volumes, and a bibliography of her book reviews that was gathered by Mangum. The collection also contains correspondence from Alice Adams to Bryant Mangum. Mangum's side of the correspondence is held in the Alice Adams papers at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. The collection contains drafts of headnotes and endnotes for Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (edited by Bryant Mangum) and magazines containing early or first printings of Fitzgerald's work. Additionally, the collection contains two versions of Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," a pre-print of Mangum's analysis, and ephemera related to a lecture he gave on the topic.

The bulk of the collection consists of photocopies, with the exception of correspondence from Alice Adams to Bryant Mangum and whole issues of magazines containing work by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Alice Adams. The names of these works are recorded in the item-level descriptions.

Contains the short story "The Jelly-Bean" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Contains "What I Think and Feel at 25" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Contains a portion of "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Contains "Your Way and Mine" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Contains "The Ants at Princeton" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Contains "A Propitiation of Witches" by Alice Adams.

Contains "Alternatives," a story by Alice Adams.

Biographical / historical:

Bryant Mangum is an Emeritus Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He earned his B.A. in English in 1965 from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his Ph.D. in 1975 from the University of South Carolina. Mangum started his teaching career in 1967 at Moultrie High School in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1971, while completing his Ph.D, Mangum started teaching at VCU for the English department. He mainly taught graduate and undergraduate seminars on comtemporary and early 20th century American literature, focusing on the New Yorker magazine and authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and J.D. Salinger.

Mangum was a prominent F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar, publishing extensively and presenting nationally and internationally on his work. He is the author of Understanding Alice Adams and A Fortune Yet: Money in the Art of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Stories and was the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Context and Best Early Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

While at VCU, Mangum received a VCU Distinguished Teaching Award (1984), a Virginia State Council of Higher Education Outstanding Faculty Award (1989), a VCU Board of Visitors Teaching Fellowship (1999-2001), and the Elske v.P. Smith Distinguished Lecturer Award (2009), among other honors. Mangum was promoted to Professor in 1993 and retired from VCU in 2022 after a 50-year teaching career.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Bryant Mangum, 2024.
Arrangement:

The bulk of the collection is arranged alphabetically by folder title. The magazines are arranged chronologically by publication date.

Physical facet:
Collection includes magazines, correspondence, and photocopies.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard