A journal from Dubus's archive. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

In 1958, Andre Dubus graduated from McNeese State University in Louisiana and joined the U. S. Marine Corps, thinking it would be “a romantic way to make a living as a writer.” Buoyed by a distinctive voice and a natural ebullience, Dubus’s work enjoyed moderate initial success. After six years in the Marines, he entered the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, received his MFA, and completed his first and only novel, The Lieutenant. From then on, he devoted himself to the art of the short story.

But it was tragedy that spurred his transformation as a writer and brought his works a broader readership. In 1986, on a highway outside…

Click on the four-way arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow to convert into full-screen mode.

The papers of British author Nicolas Freeling (1927–2003), best known for his internationally acclaimed crime novels, have opened for research at the Ransom Center.  The collection consists of Freeling’s manuscript drafts, correspondence, journals, clippings, and other documents. Freeling is the author of more than 40 novels and has won several prestigious awards for crime fiction, including the British Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger award (1964), the Grand Prix de Roman Policier (1964), and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1966).

Freeling began his writing career in 1959 while serving a three-week jail sentence in Amsterdam after being accused of stealing food. Although he was deported to England shortly after being released, his experience with an Amsterdam detective inspired him to write the first of his famous Piet Van der Valk detective novels, Love in Amsterdam. Freeling continued the series for ten years, and, to the dismay of readers and publishers alike, killed off the beloved detective in the final book.

Two years after writing the tenth and last van der Valk novel, Freeling introduced readers to French police detective Henri Castang, who appeared in 16 novels. He also penned four non-fiction titles, including two books inspired by 12 years of experience working as a restaurant chef, a book of essays about literature’s best crime writers, and his memoir, The Village Book.

Freeling resisted his classification as a crime writer, preferring to focus instead on human psychology and social institutions. The images featured in the slideshow largely represent Freeling’s novel Gadget and excerpts from his journals. His attention to detail in the research process and commitment to realism reveal talents that extend beyond writing excellent crime fiction.

Gadget paints an alarmingly factual account of the implications of the nuclear age and its effects on human behavior and motivation. Freeling worked closely with American physicist Peter Zimmerman to achieve accurate renderings of nuclear instruments, and the two men exchanged notes, research, and drawings throughout the novel’s development, all of which can be found in the archive.

The Freeling papers are a rich and varied resource, with documents ranging from recipes that reveal Freeling’s affinity for cooking, detailed drawings of a nuclear bomb referenced in Gadget, journal excerpts about the effects of drinking wine while writing, and more. While Freeling may be known primarily for his detective dramas, his dedication to the analysis of the human mind is preserved in his papers.

A drawing by physicist Peter Zimmerman with his and Nicolas Freeling's notes as part of research for "Gadget," 1971–1975.

Archival boxes in the Don DeLillo archive at the Harry Ransom Center. Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Mary Holland  is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz. She recently spent time working in the David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo archives at the Ransom Center. Her work, which was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, will be used in her article “‘Your head gets in the way’: Distortion, Vision, and Influence in Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse and Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.”

Last August, I spent six glorious days working in the David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo archives at the Harry Ransom Center, research made possible by a travel stipend generously awarded by the Center. A…

Handwritten draft of Barry Unsworth's 1992 novel, "Sacred Hunger."

British author Barry Unworth, whose archive resides at the Ransom Center, died earlier this week at the age of 81.

Unsworth, who is known for such acclaimed novels as Sacred Hunger (1992), Pascali’s Island (1980), and The Ruby in Her Navel (2006), handwrites all of his novels, and the archive contains manuscripts of all but one of the 16 novels he wrote before 2007.

In this age of computers and word processing, Unsworth’s handwritten drafts reveal much about his creative process. The above page is from a draft from his Booker Prize–winning novel, Sacred Hunger (1992). This draft fills five notebooks. The novel centers on an eighteenth-century slave ship, which Unsworth describes on this page as: “a particle in…

Click on the four-way arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow to convert into full-screen mode.

Through a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a team of archivists and student interns has been working to organize and catalog the papers of attorney Morris Leopold Ernst since September 2009. The collection is now open for research, and a finding aid is available online.

Morris Leopold Ernst (1888–1976), who earned his law degree 100 years ago, may not yet be a household name, but his legal career has had a lasting impact on American society. Ernst dealt primarily with civil liberties cases in a variety of areas, including censorship, obscenity, and first amendment rights. In addition to his busy legal career, he was a prolific writer, authoring more than 30 books and hundreds of articles, essays, and short works on legal topics and other social issues like big business and divorce.

Ernst is probably best known for his work in literary censorship cases. His influential fights include the defense of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, Arthur Schnitzler’s Casanova’s Homecoming, and most famously, James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Though the majority of Ernst’s work took place in the early and mid-twentieth century, as our team of archivists sifted through his papers and processed the collection, we couldn’t help noticing how timely the collection seemed. Over and over again the subjects we read about in Ernst’s archive were echoed by stories in the recent news.

The case United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, which Ernst and his colleagues carefully orchestrated, won Ernst much fame and set a precedent for arguing and trying “objectionable” literature. Banned in the United States for more than a decade before Ernst won the case in 1933, Joyce’s masterpiece has had to overcome other more recent hurdles. In 2010 the work was in the news when Apple tried to censor a graphic novel version by Rob Berry and Josh Levitas. Before allowing the Ulysses comic to appear as an electronic book for the iPad, Apple requested that the illustrators remove all nudity from their images. Apple eventually rescinded its demand and allowed the original illustrations to appear.

In the 1930s, Ernst was also a prominent figure in the early birth control movement defending the Birth Control Federation of America and the Clinical Research Bureau, predecessors of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. As these organizations printed and distributed educational materials on reproduction and contraception, they were charged with obscenity. In cases such as United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, Ernst exonerated the movement’s leaders from indecency and in so doing, helped promote women’s rights and the freedom of choice. Contraception and women’s rights have continued to be newsworthy topics.

Ernst was also well known for his work with labor unions, famously defending first amendment rights in Hague, Mayor, et al. v. Committee for Industrial Organization et al. This conflict arose in the 1930s when Jersey City, N.J. mayor Frank Hague tried to suppress many of the Committee for Industrial Organization’s (CIO) activities and decreed by city ordinance that laborers could not assemble in public. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court where the workers’ rights were upheld. Though Ernst won that case in 1939, politicians and labor unions have often been at odds with each other. For example, beginning in February 2011 headlines were populated with reports about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempts to curtail union bargaining rights. The AFL-CIO represented workers in these disagreements as well.

Ernst published his book Too Big in 1940, one of the many books he wrote. The title is echoed by the phrase “too big to fail,” with which we all are familiar, as it has been frequently used in the media since the market crash in 2008. Monopolies and the danger of big business were of real concern to Ernst, and he wrote about it not only in that volume, but in numerous magazine articles.

Censorship, birth control, labor unions, and monopolies were only a few of Ernst’s many interests. As a tireless worker he involved himself in many other issues, such as reducing postage rates for books and promoting literacy around the world. His papers provide insight into his legal practice and writing career and could also provide a new perspective on issues in contemporary society.

Morris L. Ernst (left, holding book) was one of the most active attorneys for the anti-censorship cause during the interwar years. In this 1935 photograph, from the "New York Journal American," Ernst defends the Gustavo Flaubert's "November."

Cover of "Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects" by Tom Smith.

The archive of visual effects producer Thomas Smith has been donated to the Ransom Center. Smith worked on the special effects for such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. (1982), Star Trek: The Search for Spock (1983), Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). Below, he shares why he chose the Ransom Center as the repository for his papers and why it’s important to preserve these materials.

Why did you choose the Ransom Center as the home for your archive?

I began making 16 mm films right after I was discharged from the Air Force. I worked in…

Student volunteer Carly Dearborn and Ransom Center Curator of Film Steve Wilson with materials from the Tom Smith collection. Photo by Pete Smith.

Thomas Smith (b. 1938), visual effect producer for such films as Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (1980) and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982), has donated his archive to the Ransom Center. Smith was hired by George Lucas as the first head of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and worked on the special effects for such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989).

The Smith collection comprises 22 boxes and documents Smith’s professional work through the 1980s…

T. C. Boyle tours the Ransom Center with Megan Barnard, Assistant Director for Acquisitions and Administration. Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Writer T. C. Boyle, whose archive was recently acquired by the Ransom Center, visited today while in Austin for a book tour stop promoting the paperback edition of his novel When the Killing’s Done.

Boyle speaks at BookPeople tonight at 7 p.m. Read BookPeople’s Q&A with Boyle in advance of the event.

Click on the four-way arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow to convert into full-screen mode.

The Ransom Center has acquired the archive of novelist and short-story writer Tom Coraghessan “T. C.” Boyle, author of such acclaimed works as The Tortilla Curtain (1995) and World’s End (1987). Spanning more than 30 years from the 1970s through the present, the archive covers the breadth of Boyle’s prolific career.

“I am very pleased and honored to have my papers safely ensconced at the Ransom Center so that they may be preserved and made available to scholars,” said Boyle. “With such an archive, there is always the danger of damage or even destruction, especially when the papers are stored in filing cabinets and cardboard boxes in the basement of a very old house. I am vastly relieved to know that they are now safe.”

Boyle is the author of 22 books of fiction, and his short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The New Yorker. He was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Prize for best novel of the year in 1988 for World’s End and the PEN/Malamud Prize in 1999 for T. C. Boyle Stories (1998). Boyle is currently a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

The collection includes manuscripts, correspondence, professional files, and teaching material. Nearly every published title is represented by a binder of manuscript notes, research material, drafts, and proofs. Also included are about 140 short-story files.

If you’re in Austin, don’t miss the chance to see Boyle at BookPeople on March 19.

Promotional poster for a reading of "The Tortilla Curtain" by T. C. Boyle on November 14, 2006.

Ernest Hemingway as a baby. Unidentified photographer.

The recent publication of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume I, 1907-1922 has re-ignited public interest in Hemingway’s personal life and documents. In the introduction to the book, editor Sandra Spanier writes: “Hemingway’s letters constitute this autobiography in the continuous present tense. They enrich our understanding of his creative processes, offer insider insights into the twentieth-century literary scene, and document the making and marketing of an American icon.” Four of the letters from the Ransom Center’s  Hemingway collection can be found in the book.

Liesl Olson, a 2011-12 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, visited the Ransom Center in October 2011 to study the letters of Hemingway. In January she will become Director of the Scholl Center…