JULIAN BARNES

I don’t do a series of neatly completed drafts, each replacing the preceding one; in fact I don’t think in terms of drafts, rather of a continuing process of rereading, correction, and adjustment. I often start a day’s work by correcting the previous day’s output; might correct again at the end of a chapter, a section, and so on; but equally I might work over a whole section by itself half a dozen or more times before moving on. I correct in pencil or biro [ball-point] or felt pen over the typed script; so any typed page might contain half a dozen or more correcting levels. When the page becomes too messy to work with, I retype it. This

“secondish” ‘draft’ would also suffer much correction in the same way; there might then be a complete clean retype for the printer. I would correct again at copy-editing stage, and again, sometimes heavily, on proof. All pages that have been superseded I put in a folder, though in no particular order and with no attempt to show where they came from. By the time I deliver the novel every typed page would have been read and corrected probably between 15 and 30 times.

There might be an occasion when the germ—or rather, the pre-germ—of a novel makes an earlier appearance in a travel diary or a personal journal: a piece of gossip, say, or an account of a visit to Flaubert’s birthplace. But everything I do from the moment I am faced by what I recognize as the possibility—or pre-possibility—of a novel is contained within the archive.

I have never thrown away more than the occasional (more or less duplicate) page of typescript. My archive therefore contains 98 or 99% of all the marks I make on paper as a novelist.

—Julian Barnes, 2001

NoRmAN mAILER

A man who went to a famous prep school in the early ’20s said afterward, “It was the worst experience of my life and the most valuable.”

I can say the same about my time in the U.S. Army. In 1944, I came out of Fort Bragg an artillery replacement and was sent to the 112th Regimental Combat Team, originally from San Antonio but now in the Philippines. There I was converted into an infantry rifleman. So I got to know a fair amount about Texas over the next year. And Texans. Most of them were dirt-poor and damn tough. (For years

afterward in New York, when trouble was brewing on the street, I would do my best to talk in a Texas accent.)

To this, I can add a splendid few days I spent in Austin as a lecturer back in the very early ’60s, and I do remember the university as one of the most exciting and open campuses I ever visited.

Those are ties, but, of course, one acquires many others over 82 years. I’d say the major part of my decision (and pleasure) to have this archive go to the Ransom Center is that you have one of the best, if not, indeed, the greatest collection of literary archives to be found in America. What the hell. Since it’s going to Texas, let’s say one of the best in the world.

—Norman Mailer, 2005

dAvId mAmEt

I started keeping a journal over 40 years ago, and, so, established the habit of writing longhand. Virtually everything I’ve written since: plays, screenplays, non-fiction, and novels, existed, first in hardbound, lined notebooks full of black or blue ink. Subsequent drafts of my work, for 40 years, were (and are) typed either on an old manual, or on an IBM Selectric typewriter.…

Why, I wondered, had I collected this mass of junk, none of which I ever wanted to see again? (I never wanted to see it again as the process from first inspiration to putatively

finished product was a reminder, if not of pain, then of effort I’d much rather forget.)

Aha, however, I thought, perhaps some imaginary future soul, possessed of a surfeit of time, and an interest in the arcane, might find diversion, if not benefit, in the perusal of the growth of this or that project, or, indeed, of my career. This is every parent’s fantasy: that those who come after one would actually “care.”

I dunno. During the length of my career, various scholars, interviewers, fans, and members-of-the-audience have, most flatteringly, asked questions about my work. I could vouchsafe no cogent answers; for, neither I nor any other artist knows where he “got his ideas,” or “what he meant by that.” That’s why the product is art, which may connect the unconscious of the artist to that of the audience.

So, to conclude, having an archive in the care of the Ransom Center, in the care, if I may, of intelligent, and dedicated enthusiasts, fulfilled both the fantasy of the parent, and that of the artist, who now, though absent, might envision a cost-free colloquy with a perfect interlocutor…

I don’t know how students and scholars will make use of my archive in later years, but it’s all there. Good luck, and thank you for the compliment.

—David Mamet, 2007

ANdRE dUBUS

As the second of my father’s six children, and on behalf of them all, I want to thank the Ransom Center for offering to house and care for our father’s archive. Since he was a boy in neighboring Louisiana, he had dreamed of being a writer. By the end of his life, he had become one of this country’s finest practitioners of the short story.

I was a student at UT-Austin and graduated in 1981. Pop would call me from Massachusetts, and he’d want to hear all about Austin. He was listening to a lot of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson then. When I

graduated, I brought him a Hook Em’ Horns tank top to work out in. I also sent him a LONGHORNS DAD bumper sticker he then stuck to the back of his writing chair.

Sometimes I’d walk into his room before he was finished working, and I’d see my Longhorn father hunched over his desk, writing slowly in pen into a bound notebook, composing one of his masterful stories, all of which will now be in Austin. We know the Ransom Center will take far better care of these gems than we ever could, and we are so grateful.

—Andre Dubus III, 2009

dENIS JohNSoN

It’s a deep comfort knowing my archives have found a home, and it’s a special honor that the Ransom Center will be that home; but having this association with the Ransom Center is most important, for me, on a personal level. Over the last couple of decades I and my family—wife Cindy, and kids Daniel and Lana—have been sometime residents of Austin, and we’ve spent time together at many Ransom Center exhibits and events. So the Ransom Center already has its place in our family’s story, and now it brings part of that story to a happy conclusion.

—Denis Johnson, 2010

BoB WoodWARd

Our Watergate reporting for the Post, and our two books, were the subject of substantial controversy at the time. Over the last three decades the emergence of the historical record has demonstrated the validity of our work, but not always what it was based on. A full disclosure of all our files and material will add to the understanding of the Watergate era and help pinpoint how we were able to obtain information and who precisely helped us. At the same time, the expertise and facilities of the Ransom Center will ensure that the full record, properly reviewed and archived, will eventually be available while guaranteeing that the pledge

of confidentiality to sources will be maintained throughout the lifetime of those sources.

—Bob Woodward, 2003

JIm CRACE

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to pick my way through the riches of the Ransom Center in Austin, including notebooks and illustrations by my personal favorites—William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and T. H. White. It was an enlightening and immensely moving experience.

So it is with excitement and delight that the Center serves as a home for my own archive, spanning everything from first childhood attempts at fiction and teenage poems through 17 years of journalism and nine published novels

to page drafts of my current ongoing book (partly set in Austin) and watercolour sketches for an upcoming fictional memoir. It is, of course, strange and even a little distressing to part with so many valued and familiar papers—but I am certain that it is better that they are available and cared for in the Ransom Center than boxed and shut away in the attic of our house in Birmingham, England. No writer could wish for more than to be allocated a corner in such a fine, important and world-class collection.

—Jim Crace, 2010

RoBERt dE NIRo

One of the most important things about the Harry Ransom Center is that the material will be accessible to students and the public. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.

—Robert De Niro, 2006

PAUL SChRAdER

I first heard about the Ransom Center through Robert De Niro, when his collection came here. He told me that this

was the place to be, and I am excited about giving my papers to the Center, where they will be used by students and scholars.

—Paul Schrader, 2010

tIm o’BRIEN

I’m delighted and much relieved to know that my modest archive will be under the care of people who appreciate commas and periods and the considered arrangement of our alphabet upon the page. The Harry Ransom Center has become something even more than an important repository of cultural materials; it is also a house in which, late at night, or on a rainy afternoon, one can hear the furious scratchings of the human soul in its struggle to revise itself. How nice to find such a home.

—Tim O’Brien, 2007

SEBAStIAN BARRy

What is an archive? It’s a memory trail, like those old Victorian photos—is that a ghost? But here, it’s a ghost of your work, a ghost of yourself… When I was looking at it today, rising around me were the walls and people I was surrounded by when I wrote it. It’s a haunted river, a long river. If you break the flow of the river, it destroys it. Let it be what it is.…

I would be happy for people to see the immense amount of work [in my archive] that didn’t come to anything—like prisoners still stuck in there… As with Annie Dunne,

sometimes it takes 23 years to come to fruition and be done properly.…

There is a brand of high romance attached to [placing my archive here]. Not only that the Harry Ransom Center took the boxes, some of which material had been floating around various houses since the mid seventies, but that now nigh on 30 years of work nests in the one place, in great safety.… It’s a source of pride, private pride, the sort of pride that keeps you going when work is staring back at you, as if you were an interloper in the chair.

—Sebastian Barry, 2006

doN dELILLo

Discarded pages mark the physical dimensions of a writer’s labor—you know, how many shots it took to get a certain paragraph right. Or the awesome accumulation, the gross tonnage, of first draft pages. The first draft of Libra sits in ten manuscript boxes. I like knowing it’s in the house. I feel connected to it. It’s the complete book, the full experience containable on paper.

—Don DeLillo, 1993

ChAINS of CoRRESPoNdENCE

One of the most interesting components of an archive is correspondence. Many archives are filled with letters. Norman Mailer’s papers, for example, include thousands of letters that document more than 60 years of his life. Mailer kept both incoming letters and copies of his outgoing correspondence with family, friends, fellow writers, business associates, politicians, activists, and fans, among others. Other archives, like the papers of David Foster Wallace, include very little correspondence.

Correspondence can help illuminate the creative process behind the work of a writer or artist while also providing a glimpse into the personal thoughts and the day-to-day activities that fill a life. Such information can help one better understand a writer or artist, and thus correspondence is often of great interest to biographers and scholars. Many writers are talented correspondents who have mastered letter writing as an art. The letters of James Salter, for example, are often as lyrical and perfectly crafted as his novels.

Correspondence can also demonstrate the many ways in which writers and artists of an era are connected. The Ransom Center works hard to build a collection of archives that complement and enrich one another. Many of the writers in our collections knew each other, influenced one another, or collaborated. These connections are often made clear through their correspondence.

The correspondence chains displayed here help demonstrate some of the connections between the writers and artists whose archives the Center acquired over the past decade. Many of these individuals corresponded with each other, some extensively discussing personal and artistic matters and others more impersonally. These correspondence chains offer just a sampling of the letters one can find in an archive.

CoLLECtINg IN thE dIgItAL AgE

Twenty-first century archives are full of challenges, from the large-scale use of acidic paper to the prevalence of unstable inks on the page. With the rise of the computer age, one of the most pressing concerns for institutions such as the Ransom Center is how to preserve and make accessible the contents of the disks, hard drives, and other digital media that are becoming increasingly common in archives. The rapid evolution of technology and the promise of future innovations in the ways we communicate and store information make this task all the more challenging.

At a time when the digital world has permeated so much of our lives and work, digital materials make up an essential component of archives. More and more writers are composing their texts on computers, photographers and filmmakers are using digital cameras, and publishers are releasing works in electronic formats. Furthermore, the writers and artists whose archives we acquire are communicating more often by email, text message, blogs, and online social networks. The digital files that record their work and communications should be preserved for future study.

Because an archive typically spans an individual’s life or career, it often includes multiple generations of digital media, from early computers and disks to contemporary DVDs. It can be challenging for archivists to identify, locate, and often repair the obsolete hardware required just to access these materials. Furthermore, institutions must make these materials accessible to researchers in a way that will preserve contextual information and not compromise the integrity of the files themselves. They must also commit to migrating digital files to new formats as technology evolves and software becomes obsolete. The Ransom Center is working with institutions across the country and the world to develop standards and best practices to address these challenges.

We must also explore how technology is changing the way art itself is created. Writing a manuscript longhand is a different experience from typing a document and revising it as you go along. Composing an email or a text message is not the same as writing a letter and sending it through the mail. These acts reflect our changing culture, and digital materials in archives help capture this evolution of culture and art in our age.

CoLLECtINg CoNtEmPoRARy BookS

In addition to acquiring the archives of contemporary writers, the Ransom Center collects the books published by a significant group of authors who are writing in English—be they American, British, Canadian, Irish, African, or Indian. With the help of faculty, book dealers, writers, and our curatorial staff, the Ransom Center has developed a list of approximately 600 authors who published their first work after 1950. For most writers on the list, we collect all first editions of their works. For a smaller number of these writers, we collect all their published works, including translations and special editions, and we also collect manuscripts. This list is frequently growing and is not based on aesthetic judgment alone. Other factors include availability of manuscripts, relationships with other writers in our collections, and form or genre.

A copy of the list can be found in this reading nook. Please let us know if there are writers not on this list whose books you think the Ransom Center should be collecting. We would also be interested in knowing whose archives you think would be good additions to our collections. You can leave your comments in the notebook here.