Summary Information
Abstract
This collection documents the professional work of Pulitzer
Prize winning author, Herman Wouk. The bulk of the papers are drafts of manuscripts
and plays, including
The Caine Mutiny,
with many
annotations and notes by the author. There is also correspondence between Wouk and
his colleagues, in particular his brother, the noted scientist, Victor
Wouk.
At a Glance
Call No.: | MS#1393 |
Bib ID: | 4079503 View CLIO record |
Creator(s): | Wouk, Herman, 1915- |
Title: | Herman Wouk Papers,
1915-2003
[Bulk Dates: 1940-1960].
|
Physical description: | 23.26 linear feet (53 document boxes, one small flat
box, two oversized folders).
|
Language(s): | In English.
|
Access: |
This collection is located on-site.
Portions of this collection are
restricted until 2035.
Please see the container list for details.
More information » |
Arrangement
Arrangement
This collection is arranged in five series.
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Description
Scope and Content
The Herman Wouk Papers span the early portion of Wouk's life, although there is some
scant correspondence from the late 1990s. The bulk of the records concern his many
writings in the form of articles, books, short stories, plays, and poetry. The
second largest series consists of correspondence from admiring fans, colleagues,
publishing houses, and family members. In addition, there are personal items,
printed material, photographs, and a small amount of audiovisual material. Records
documenting Herman Wouk's professional output after the 1950s are located at the
Library of Congress.
Series I: Correspondence, 1935-2000
Series I holds letters sent between Wouk and his colleagues at Columbia
University, admiring fans, personal friends, publishing houses and journals,
and family members. The bulk of the correspondence consists of complimentary
letters sent to Wouk in regards to his book
Marjorie
Morningstar,
although there are also some references to
The Caine Mutiny.
Condolence letters for the
death of his son, personal correspondence, and letters from Jewish
institutions are found here. This series is arranged alphabetically by the
individual’s last name or the name of the institution. Note that there are
considerable gaps in this series: the letters are primarily from the 1940s
through the late 1950s with some dating from the late 1990s.
Series II: Writings, 1940-1999
This is the largest series in the collection and holds Wouk’s writings. The
series has been divided into two subseries, one that consists of articles
and books and one for plays. Both subseries contain the text itself in
numerous draft forms, research material, publicity and reviews, and working
notes. In most cases, there are multiple drafts documenting Wouk’s creative
process. These drafts illustrate the progression from preliminary notes to a
final piece.
Subseries II.1: Articles and Books, 1943-1999
The bulk of Subseries 1 are manuscripts of books. Titles held in this
subseries include
The Caine Mutiny, Aurora Dawn,
City Boy, Marjorie Morningstar, This Is My God, Youngblood Hawke,
Aurora Dawn, The Caine Mutiny,
and
The Will to Go On.
These texts mainly span Wouk’s early
literary career, although
The Glory
was
published in the middle 1990s. The manuscripts exist in multiple draft
versions that are often both handwritten and typed with extensive
rewrites and notes by Wouk. These notes range from the purely
theoretical to the comic and illustrate how Wouk crafted his longer
writings and the ways in which he molded his ideas. There are also
several articles that Wouk wrote for a variety of journals. Article
topics range from complimentary pieces about other writers that Wouk
respected, portraits of geographical locations, and issues relevant to
the American Jewish community.
Subseries II.2: Plays, 1940-1957
Subseries 2 is composed of plays spanning from Wouk’s time in the United
States Navy all the way through the mid-1950s. Often, the plays would go
through several iterations that would include name changes. In these
cases, the final name has been retained. The majority of the plays are
comedic in nature and is concerned with topics such as human nature,
art, relationships between men and women, and contemporary American
society. Some of the plays include an unmarked script as well as the
director's marked script. Set sketches, drafts of blocking for the
actors, printed material, such as playbills and tickets, and background
research notes are also held in this subseries. Of interest in this
subseries are several radio scripts written during the early 1940s that
address the political situation and foreign policy at that time, often
in a comedic way.
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Using the Collection
RBML
Access Restrictions
This collection is located on-site.
Portions of this collection are
restricted until 2035.
Please see the container list for details.
Restrictions on Use
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material
from the collection must be requested from the Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Book and
Manuscript Library (RBML). The RBML approves permission to publish that which it
physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the
patron.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Herman Wouk Papers; Box and Folder;
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Selected Related Material at other Repositories
The Papers of Victor Wouk, 1934-2004
California Institute
of Technology, 10208-MS.
Herman Wouk Papers,
Library of Congress.
This collection consists primarily of material from the early 1960s to
the present. Currently the collection is marked "restricted." Researchers may
inquire about the possibility of using certain materials.
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About the Finding Aid / Processing Information
Columbia University Libraries. Rare Book and
Manuscript Library; machine readable finding aid created by Columbia University
Libraries Digital Library Program Division
Processing Information
Processed in 2007 by Lea Osborne
Machine readable finding aid generated from MARC-AMC source via XSLT
conversion December 2, 2008
Finding aid written in English.
2009-01-13
xml document instance created by Patrick Lawlor
2009-04-24
Edited by Lea Osborne
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Subject Headings
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches at Columbia University through the Archival Collections Portal and through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, as well as ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
All links open new windows.
Genre/Form
Subjects
Heading | CUL Archives: Portal | CUL Collections: CLIO | Nat'l / Int'l Archives: ArchiveGRID |
---|
American literature--20th century. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Auerbach, Red, 1917-2006. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Authors, American. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
City children. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Columbia College (New York, N.Y.)--Students. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Columbia University--Students. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Jewish women in literature. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Judaism--Customs and practices. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Judaism--Relations. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Military occupation in literature. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Mutiny. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Thompson, Ira. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Trials (Naval offenses) | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
United States.--Continental Navy. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
World War, 1939-1945--Fiction. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
World War, 1939-1945--Jews. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Wouk, Herman, 1915- | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
Wouk, Victor. | Portal | CLIO | ArchiveGRID |
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History / Biographical Note
Biographical Note
Herman Wouk, perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize
winning book,
The Caine Mutiny,
is a prolific author
and enthusiastic supporter of Jewish culture. Wouk was born in the Bronx on May 27,
1915 to Abraham Isaac and Esther (neé Levine) Wouk, Russian Jewish immigrants. Wouk
attended Townsend Harris Hall and continued his education at Columbia University,
where he graduated with a B.A. with general honors in 1934. His interest in writing
expanded during his collegiate years and he took advantage of the literary
opportunities afforded on campus. He wrote for the
Spectator
all four years as well as the campus humor magazine,
The Jester,
becoming editor-in-chief his senior year.
Wouk also made a name for himself from his popular variety shows, such as the 1932
one co-written with Arnold Auerbach entitled
How Revolting.
After graduation, Herman Wouk continued to employ his
comedic skills and was a staff writer for comedian Fred Allen. However, with the
onset of World War II, Wouk traveled to Washington D.C. in order to use his talent
to support the war effort. He wrote promotional radio scripts for the United States
Treasury Department in 1941 to entice Americans to purchase more war bonds. Wouk
also began to compose other radio plays featuring soldiers and military themes.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Herman Wouk joined the United States Navy where he
served on a destroyer minesweeper called the
U.S.S.
Zane
in the Pacific. Wouk's free time was spent writing within a broad
spectrum of genres. He penned poems praising the work of the faceless individuals
involved in the war, radio and play scripts, and the beginnings of his novel,
Aurora Dawn,
published in 1946 after he was discharged.
While in the Navy, Wouk married Betty Sarah Brown on December 9, 1945. They had
three sons, the first of whom died in childhood.
Herman Wouk continued to produce a stream of books,
articles, essays, and plays. Two years after his first novel, Wouk's second
The City Boy
was published. This was followed by
The Caine Mutiny,
a book partially culled from Wouk's
war experience and which became his first number one bestseller. The accolades did
not stop and
The Caine Mutiny
won the Pulitzer Prize
in 1952. Other titles followed,
Marjorie Morningstar
(1955),
Youngblood Hawke
(1962),
Don't Stop the Carnival
(1965),
The Winds of War
(1971),
War and Remembrance
(1978),
Inside, Outside
(1985),
The Hope
(1993), and
The Glory
(1994). Wouk has also written two studies on the history and the culture of
Judaism,
This Is My God
(1959) and
The Will to Live On
(2000).
The life of
The Caine Mutiny
continued to expand for in 1954, Wouk reworked the text into a play,
The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
This production toured
throughout the United States and spawned further iterations, including a televised
production, a film, and a recent Broadway revival. Other books that had extended
public lives were
The Winds of War
and
War and Remembrance.
Both of these novels became
successful television miniseries in the 1980s.
Writing is not all that defines Herman Wouk. He is strongly
committed to promoting and supporting Judaism. Wouk spent several years in the late
1950s as a visiting professor at Yeshiva University. He and his wife Betty Sarah
traveled to Israel in 1955 where Wouk gave lectures, attended a performance of
The Caine Mutiny,
and participated in cultural
and religious ceremonies. His visit was widely covered in the press. Additionally,
in the 1970s Herman Wouk endowed Beit Ephraim, a Jewish communal residence located
at his alma mater, Columbia University. He continued to serve on its advisory board
and, in 2002, received a Gershom Mendes Seixas Award, for outstanding contribution
to Jewish life at Columbia. Herman Wouk is still writing, having published his
latest novel,
A Hole in Texas,
in 2004. He lives with
his wife in California.
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