Austin Strong papers, 1890-1961

Correspondence, manuscripts, diaries, commonplace books, drawings, photographs, and printed materials. The collection is a comprehensive documentation of the dramatist's career and includes manuscripts, typescripts, notes, and costume and scenic design for more than seventy of his plays and related writings; 31 diaries, commonplace books, and scrapbooks containing manuscript and typescript notes, travel sketches, original drawings, and photographs; and correspondence files including letters from Harley Granville-Barker, Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, John Galsworthy, Booth Tarkington, and Thornton Wilder. Austin Strong's mother, Isobel Field, was the step-daughter of Robert Louis Stevenson. Consequently, the collection contains much Stevensoniana, including photographs and Isobel Field's letters from Western Samoa, where she was known as "Teuila." Also, correspondence and photographs relating to Cornwall Park, Auckland, New Zealand, which was designed by Austin Strong.

1988 Addition: Correspondence, manuscripts, typescripts, and printed material from the Nantucket family home of Austin Strong. The correspondence (ca. 300 items) contains Strong's letters concerning upkeep and work done of the property of A. D. Russell, Princeton, N. J., for the firm of Parsons and Pentecost, 1899, fan mail addressed to Strong in response to his 1933 NBC radio talks entitled "Cabbages and Kings", and correspondence in 1950 dealing with the Stage Relief Fund. The manuscripts consist chiefly of both autograph and typescript versions of his plays, (ca. 50 items) with corrections and notes, including a t.ms. draft for his last play, "A Play without a Name", the first t.ms. of "The Spider's Web" ("author's copy), the original ms. corrections for "Lights Out, or Taps", an a.ms. of "Blindman's Buff", a t.ms. of "Rip Van Winkle" (acting copy) with annotations, an a.ms. of "The Sire de Maletroit's Door" with a note stating "written with J. M. Barrie", and ca. 1,000 a.ms. and t.ms. draft sheets for "Lafayette" on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets interleaved between oversized foolscap (blue construction paper). In addition, there are t.mss., for a number of speeches, the entire t.ms. radio scripts for the NBC series "Cabbages and Kings", and a Japanese Language Study notebook. Among the printed materials there are approximately 200 theater programs for his own productions as well as programs of plays he attended in the U. S. and England with his holograph comments, a half dozen of his printed plays, including John Golden's copy of "Seventh Heaven". There is one photograph album of scenes from plays and other theatrical portraits, and the figures and props from a model stage set for The Maharajah". Total count ca. 1500 items. Dates covered: 1899-1956. See Boxes: 2A, 5A, 5B, 5C, 5D, 5E, 18A, 23.