Collection ID: LMC 2955
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Millhauser, Steven
Abstract:
The Millhauser mss., 1951-2016, consist of the correspondence, writings, and professional files of American author Steven Millhauser (b. 1943).
Extent:
40 Boxes
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Item], Millhauser mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Background

Biographical / Historical:

Steven Millhauser (b. 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for his novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, for which he was awarded the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Millhauser was born in New York City and grew up in Connecticut. He received his BA from Columbia (1965) and pursued (though did not complete) his doctorate at Brown from 1968-71 and 1976-77, where he wrote parts of his first published novels, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright (published 1972), for which he won the 1975 Prix Médicis Étranger in France, and Portrait of a Romantic (published 1977). Millhauser's stories, frequently written in the first-person plural as if by a committee or a town in its collective, draw from fairy tales, Greek mythology, The Arabian Nights, and Hebrew scripture; his interests include automata and miniatures, stage magic and illusion, museums and archives, doppelgängers and replicas. Millhauser taught creative writing at Skidmore College from 1988 until his retirement in 2017. He has two children with his former wife Cathy (married 1984), Jonathan and Anna.

Scope and Content:

The bulk of the collection consists of drafts and pre-publication materials of Steven Millhauser's published and unpublished writings.

The Juvenilia series contains Millhauser's unpublished early stories and poetry, including his first unpublished novel, The Education of Jonathan. The series also contains Millhauser's course notes from Columbia and Brown.

In the Writings series, heavily revised handwritten first drafts of stories and novels are contained in the Notebooks subseries. Then, typescript drafts are arranged by the book in which they were ultimately collected. (See the Periodical Correspondence subseries for some additional proofs of stories that first appeared in magazines.) For each story, there is some combination of "background" (photocopies of articles for research), a first typescript draft and discarded pages (rough drafts, usually heavily annotated in pencil in Millhauser's hand), and a series of reading copies (mostly finalized drafts with minor revisions). The reading copies are for Millhauser's personal use, or are given to readers Steve Epstein, Steve Stern, Kathryn Davis, Kate Greenspan, Mark Lehman, etc. The numbering of the reading copies is Millhauser's, but the designations Draft A, Draft B, etc. are based on the archivist's inferences; note that where Millhauser refers to a draft as "original," he means "as opposed to a xerox copy" rather than "unrevised."

The Correspondence series contains business correspondence, including correspondence from Millhauser's editors Robin Desser, Ann Patty, and Nina Bourne and their colleagues regarding reviews and production (cover design, flap copy, release dates) and correspondence with Millhauser's agent Amanda Urban ("Binky") and her colleagues regarding rights, permissions, and royalties. The "Writing Business" series consists of miscellaneous inquiries and requests sent to Millhauser and to some extent duplicates the Agent Correspondence series. The most personable correspondence is from Mark Lehman, a longtime reader of Millhauser's drafts, and from Marc Chénetier, Millhauser's French translator. Much of the correspondence is in the form of emails that have been printed off by Millhauser.

Finally, the series Professional Files contains interviews, reviews, adaptations, and criticism of Millhauser's works, as well as his teaching files.

Acquisition information:
Purchase: 2016
Processing information:

Processed by Kyra Triebold. Completed in 2023.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged into the following series: I. Juvenilia, II. Writings, III. Correspondence, and IV. Professional Files.

Physical location:
ALF (Auxiliary Library Facility)

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

This collection is open for research.

Many collections are housed offsite; retrieval requires advance notice. Please make an appointment a minimum of one week in advance of your visit.

TERMS OF ACCESS:

Photography and digitization may be restricted for some collections. Copyright restrictions may apply. Before publishing, researchers are responsible for securing permission from all applicable rights holders, then filling out the Permission to Publish form.

PREFERRED CITATION:

[Item], Millhauser mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
1200 East Seventh Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-5500, USA
CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
CONTACT:
(812) 855-2452
liblilly@indiana.edu