• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Articles
  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Print Edition

Princeton University

Ransom Center acquires 21 J. D. Salinger letters

January 13, 2014 - Jennifer Tisdale

The Ransom Center has acquired 21 previously unrecorded and unpublished letters by author J. D. Salinger. The letters are accessible as part of the Ransom Center’s existing Salinger collection, which includes published and unpublished manuscripts, galleys, page proofs, and correspondence.

Most of the newly acquired letters are written by Salinger to Ruth Smith Maier, a classmate and friend he met at Ursinus College. Salinger attended Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1938, but he quit midterm and returned to New York City. He and Maier maintained a 40-year correspondence in which Salinger commented on a wide range of topics including his literary ambitions, his writing, and his family life. A number of letters offer insight into his evolving attitude toward public exposure and cast light on his decision to withhold new work from public view.

In the earliest letter, the 22-year-old Salinger expresses confidence in his literary gifts: “Oh, but I’m good,” he writes Maier. “It will take time to convince the public, but [it] shall be done.” In later letters Salinger reminisces about his brief time at Ursinus College (“one of the last peaceful or simple or oddly comforting times of my life”) and comments on his second marriage and early fatherhood. Five letters from 1977 and 1978 are written to Ruth Maier’s son, Christopher. In one he offers an explanation for his decision to withhold his writing from the public, explaining “publication tends, for me, at least, to put all work still in progress in dire jeopardy . . . I distrust the finality of publication.”

The acquisition also includes copies of Ruth Smith Maier’s letters to Salinger and a draft of the first letter Christopher Maier sent the author.

Ransom Center Director Stephen Enniss notes the correspondence will be of particular interest to those who wish to understand Salinger’s withdrawal from public life. He adds, “It also humanizes the author, showing him confronting a range of life-changing events from marriage to fatherhood and his own aging.”

The Ransom Center’s Salinger collection was established in 1968 and has been augmented with subsequent additions over many years. The Ransom Center is one of a handful of institutions that hold original Salinger manuscripts, including Princeton University, Harvard University, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the Morgan Library.

Filed Under: Acquisitions, Authors Tagged With: acquisition, Acquisitions, Chrtopher Maier, Harvard University, J. D. Salinger, Library of Congress, Morgan Library, New York Public Library, Princeton University, Ruth Maier, Stephen Enniss, Ursinus College

Primary Sidebar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-D9_lmKuM

Recent Posts

  • Highlights from an unprecedented year
  • Inspiration and insight in the papers of author Julian Barnes
  • EXCERPT: Julian Barnes From the Margins: Exploring the Writer’s Archives
  • The camera as a weapon against racial injustice: Eli Reed’s Black In America
  • Modified research services offered remotely

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Douglas Duncan David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West From the Outside In Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate

Archives

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2021 The Harry Ransom Center Magazine


The University of Texas at Austin · Web Privacy Policy · Web Accessibility Policy

Copyright © 2020 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy