Notes from the Library: Manuscripts Acquisitions

Abstract

The papers of art critic, biographer and novelist Janet Hobhouse (1948-1991) have been added to the Libraries' manuscripts holdings. A native of New York City, Hobhouse was graduated from Oxford University in 1969. She subsequently worked as an editor and also wrote articles on art topics for several magazines. Her first novel, Nellie without Hugo, appeared in 1982 and was hailed as the work of a talented new writer. Her subsequent books Dancingin the Dark (1983) and November {1986) received generally favorable reviews as well. These three novels, set variously in New York and London, explore conflicts between freedom and security in the context of personal relationships. A fourth novel, published posthumously, is the autobiographical Furies, released in 1993. Nonfiction books by Hobhouse include Everybody Who Was Anybody (1975), a biography of Gertrude Stein, and The Bride Stripped Bare: The Artist and the Female Nude in the Twentieth Century (1988). Present in the Hobhouse papers are notes, manuscripts of writings, reviews, correspondence, photographs, appointment books and other documents totaling approximately twelve cubic feet in size. Completing the collection are family photographs and papers of the author's mother, Frances Hobhouse, a New York-based sculptor. Theatrical papers donated by Paul Foster (RC '54) reflect three decades of his activities as a playwright. Foster is a former president of La Mama E.T.C., the off-off-Broadway venue where many of his earlier plays debuted or were staged. The papers received document the full range of Foster's experimental theater output, from his early one-act plays such as "Hurrah for the Bridge" and "Balls," through the internationally acclaimed Tom Paine and Elizabeth /. The approximately 21 cubic feet of papers consist of a biographical file, 1964-1989; calendars, 1972-1990; address books, 1969-1984 and undated; correspondence, 1963-1993, including letters exchanged with American and European actors, directors, producers, theatrical agents, publishers, and foundation