The Papers of Fredson Thayer Bowers [1595-1902], 1922-1992

Access and use

Location of collection:: University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

University of Virginia

P.O. Box 400110

160 McCormick Rd

Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110

Contact for questions and access:: POC: Brenda Gunn

Email: bg9ba@virginia.edu

Phone: (434) 924-1037

Phone: (434) 243-1776

Fax: (434) 924-4968

Web: library.virginia.edu/special-collections

Web: library.virginia.edu/special-collections/services/reference-request

Restrictions:: Open for research use.
Terms of access:: See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred citation:: The Papers of Fredson Thayer Bowers, Accession #12730-a, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Summary

Language:: English
Preferred citation:: The Papers of Fredson Thayer Bowers, Accession #12730-a, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Background

Scope and content:

The Papers of Fredson Thayer Bowers contain ca. 12,000 items (45 shelf feet) that span the years 1595-1992, with the bulk concentrated in the period 1922-1992. The items relating to pre-twentieth century dates consist primarily of photo and electrostatic copies (EC's) of printed literary texts that Bowers used in his editing work. Among these, the largest portion are copies of Stephen Crane stories that appearedin newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

1950-68
1970-79
1980-82
1983-85
1986-87
1988-90, n.d.

Barrett, Clifton Waller, 1955
Barrol, J. Leeds, 1971-75
Blayney, Peter W., 1974
Boydston, Jo-Ann, 1965-90, n.d. (3 folders)
Brodsky, Louis D., 1978-89, n.d.
Bruccoli, Matthew J., 1971-90, n.d.
Chappell, Warren (with illustrations), 1976-87

Clark, Leonard, 1953
Cook, Don L. 1979-81, n.d.
Flannagan, Roy, 1989
Gainesbarry, J., 1971
Greetham, David C., 1986-90, n.d.
Greg, Walter Wilson, 1953
Grier, Philip M., 1974-77
Hamblin, Robert W., 1978-80
Howard-Hill, Trevor H., 1957-89
King, Robert T., 1971-75
Kolve, V.A., 1980
Kvarnes, Robert G., 1977
Levin, Harry Tuchman, 1982
Miscellaneous correspondence (other thanbowers), 1967-71
Reiman, Donald H., 1983-85
Rosowski, Susan J., 1983-84
Rowse, A. Leslie, 1973-85
Shillingsburg, Peter, 1987-88
Tanselle, G. Thomas, 1976-90, n.d.
Turner, Robert, 1959-90
Vander Meulen, David L., 1984-88
Williams, George W., 1971-89, n.d.

Named: Bowers, Nancy Hale (with Bruccoli), 1959-84
Bruccoli, Matthew J. (with Fredson Thayer Bowers), 1963-87, n.d. (6 folders) (with others), 1967-76

Manuscript material

see also oversize [Review of Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ed. K. Tillotson], 1968

see also Box 82

Biographical / historical:

Fredson Thayer Bowers was born in New Haven, Connecticut on April 25, 1905. Although he was the only child of Fredson Eugene Bowers and Hattie May Quigley, he grew up with two half-sisters (the children of his mother's previous marriage) and a stepfather, Charles K. Groesbeck, who his mother married after his father's death in 1911.

Bowers entered Brown University at age 16 after graduating from New Haven General High School in 1921. His study interests were in English literature and music, both of which he pursued with vigor. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and participated in a variety of literary, music and student activity clubs. He edited the school newspaper and served on the boards of student publications. He played the Hawaiian guitar, the saxophone and led a jazz band. On November 11, 1924, at age 19, while still an undergraduate, he married Hyacinth Adeline Sutphin, a Smith College graduate and member of a New York Social Register family.

Bowers graduated from Brown in 1925 and spent the next nine years at Harvard doing graduate study and raising a family. A son, Fredson, was born in 1927, a daughter, Joan, in 1931, and twin sons, Peter and Stephen, in 1934. Bowers taught English, tutored in modern languages and developed a passion for breeding, showing, judging and writing about Irish wolfhounds. He earned his Ph.D in February, 1934 and the next year went to England on scholarship.

In 1936, following an episode of marital problems that had led to a divorce, Bowers took an instructorship at Princeton. He taught freshman English and did editing work on Thomas Dekker until he accepted an offer from Dean James Southall Wilson to serve as acting assistant professor at the University of Virginia, which remained his home for the rest of his life. At the University of Virginia, Bowers taught English along with 17th and 18th century novels and a course in introductory bibliography. In 1942, he married Nancy Hale, and relocated with her to wartime Washington, D.C. where he served as a Naval Commander supervising the deciphering of enemy codes.

Bowers' impressive scholarship during his early years in Charlottesville resulted in his recognition as a preeminent authority of bibliographical analysis. His ideas and methods broke new ground and challenged established principles and methods in descriptive bibliography and textual criticism. In this period, he inaugurated the publication of Studies in Bibliographywhich he personally edited for more than 40 years and developed into a journal of worldwide repute. In 1949, he published Principles of Bibliographical Description, which became and remains a major resource in the history of bibliography. His prestigious lectures and the voluminous output of his published essays and research together with his activities on and leadership of professional associations marked him as a dynamic scholar in his field. As a teacher of boundless energy and as an active and innovative chairman and dean, Bowers built the English department at the University of Virginia into one of the best in the United States. Bowers still found time to teach summer courses at the University of Chicago and to pursue his hobbies: writing music reviews each week for the Richmond Times- Dispatchand publishing articles about his beloved wolfhounds and his philatelic interests.

During his later career years, Bowers turned his scholarship skills in textual criticism to editing the works of post-medieval writers. He published dozens of edited volumes (60 between 1960 and his death) creating distinct expressions of technique and methodology that became recognized among many as the "Bowers school of editing." He continued producing large numbers of essays, lectures and reviews beyond his retirement in 1975.

Throughout his notable career, Bowers was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. Among the many were honorary degrees from Clark and Brown Universities and the University of Chicago. He received the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society in London and his own University of Virginia recognized his many achievements with its highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award as well as two endowed chairs, the Alumni Professorship of English (1957-68) and the Linden Kent Memorial Professorship (1968-75, 1975-91 (Emeritus)). Bowers also held appointments to the Fulbright, Guggenheim, Rosenbach, Woodrow Wilson National and the Academy of Arts and Sciences fellowships. In 1974, Bowers was honored by his former Virginia and Chicago students at a retirement dinner and in 1985, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, his colleagues organized an international conference on bibliography and editing in his name at the University of Virginia.

Nancy Hale, whose health had been failing for several years, died in 1988 and Bowers, who had also begun suffering with major health problems, died a few years later on April 11, 1991, at age 86. Following cremation, his ashes were buried next to the grave of Nancy Hale at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Boston.

Acquisition information:

The collection is a consolidation of gift acquisitions received in the Manuscript and Special Collections Departments of the University of Virginia over the period 1950-94 from: Fredson Bowers, the Estate of Fredson T. Bowers, Matthew J. Bruccoli, John Denniston, George W. Williams and Jo-Ann Boydston.

Arrangement:

Processing Information

The original classification numbers (listed below) of all previous acquisitions in this collection have been redesignated under a single consolidated classification number: 12730-a

Manuscript numbers: 3491; 5164; 5219; 5219-a; 5691,-a-ac,-ae,-ag-ai,-ak-al; 10204-q

Record Group numbers: RG-21/30.771 (.772) (.781) (.801) (.811) (.871) (.872) (.881-.884) (.891) (.901) (.902) (.911-.913) (.921) (.922) (.924) (.941) (.951) (.971)

The original classification numbers (listed below) of all previous acquisitions in this collection have been redesignated under a single consolidated classification number: 12730-a

Manuscript numbers: 3491; 5164; 5219; 5219-a; 5691,-a-ac,-ae,-ag-ai,-ak-al; 10204-q

Record Group numbers: RG-21/30.771 (.772) (.781) (.801) (.811) (.871) (.872) (.881-.884) (.891) (.901) (.902) (.911-.913) (.921) (.922) (.924) (.941) (.951) (.971)

Organization

Group I (Correspondence) contains letters, notes and letter drafts. The arrangement, in keeping with Bowers' filing order, lists a portion of the correspondence chronologically by date and another portion, alphabetically by the correspondent's name. The access restriction originally placed by the donor, Matthew J. Bruccoli, on a section of correspondence has been lifted.

Group II (Writings), comprising almost 90% of the collection, includes material consisting of copy texts, manuscripts, proofs, background research and related correspondence that Bowers used in the development of his published works. This large volume of material has also been arranged in format and chronology similar to that employed by Bowers in listing his writings. An updated version of that listing with the totality of Bowers' publications, titled, "Fredson Thayer Bowers: A Checklist and Chronology," by Martin C. Battestin may be found in Studies in Bibliography, Vol. 46, (1993) 155- 186.

Group III (Academic and Personal), the remainder of the collection, contains personal memorabilia and material relating to Bowers' academic activities. The arrangement of the Bowers papers mirrors both the breadth of his writing and the incisiveness of his analytical and descriptive methodologies. The material is replete with autograph comments, notations and emendations. Many of the manuscripts and proofs show autograph editing that served as new text for revised publication of the originals. The correspondence with those with whom Bowers worked on his many projects, particularly his former student and later assistant and collaborator, Matthew J. Bruccoli, gives a penetrating insight into the detailed and often laborious task of critical bibliographical editing.

Items of special interest include: A bound typescript of Bowers' 1928 Harvard course-thesis; an autograph manuscript of Walter Wilson Greg's seminal essay, "The Rationale of Copy-Text;" Warren Chappell illustrated letters; John Ciadi and Elder Olson poetry; Shakespeare lecture notes of James Southall Wilson; the manuscript and typescript of Bowers' unpublished lecture, "The Ideal Record Collector" and an unpublished checklist (compiled by John Denniston) that catalogues the almost 1200 classical music reviews that Bowers wrote for the Richmond Times-Dispatch between 1939-67.

Microfilm and video recordings have been transferred to the appropriate custodial sections of the University of Virginia Special Collections Department where they are identified as part of these papers under the following location indicators:

microfilm of Stephen Crane's original manuscripts and story texts and a thesis on his poetry (M-1362-1364); microfilm of the poem, "TheConceited Pedlar," and the play, "The Queene of Corsica," by Thomas Randolph (M-1680); microfilm of articles by Bowers concerning Thomas Dekker's writings, particularly, "Old Fortunatus," and on "Variant readings in some early English plays." (M-1682); microfilm of the dramatized version of Andrea Guarna's "Bellum Grammaticale" (M-1938); videorecordings in the Eminent Scholar/Teachers: Shakespeare Video Series of Bowers' lectures, "Death in Victory: Shakespeare's Tragic Reconciliations" and "Hamlet as Minister and Scourge" (VC-33, 34).

Physical description:

The Papers of Fredson Thayer Bowers contain ca. 12,000 items.

Collection