Rare Book & Manuscript Library
 

F. W. (Frederick Wilcox) Dupee papers, 1778-2003, bulk 1933-1979

Summary Information

Abstract

Personal and professional papers of the notable literary critic. The collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, notes, journals, photographs, drawings and films, and a collection of signed and annotated books and magazines from Dupee's library.

At a Glance

Call No.: MS#1700
Bib ID 10565167 View CLIO record
Creator(s) Dupee, F. W (Frederick Wilcox), 1904-1979
Title F. W. (Frederick Wilcox) Dupee papers, 1778-2003, bulk 1933-1979
Physical Description 9.43 linear feet (8 record cartons, 3 document boxes and 1 flat box)
Language(s) English , French , Spanish; Castilian .
Access You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

If you would like to use audiovisual materials in Box 5, please contact the library in advance of your visit to discuss access options.

This collection has no restrictions.

Arrangement

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in four series.

Description

Summary

The collection includes a variety of personal and professional documents, primarily from the 1930s to the 1970s. These include, among others, correspondences with dozens of writers, critics, scholars, editors and artists, as well as Dupee's wife, mother and children; journals, notes and annotated manuscripts; full transcriptions of in-depth interviews with Dupee; over 100 books from Dupee's library, signed by authors and/or annotated by Dupee; dozens of socialist titles published in the United States between 1932-1959; souvenirs and photographs from trips taken to Mexico in 1933-1935; and some films shot by Dupee.

The collection includes many testimonials on the New York intellectual life of the 1930s, and numerous items reflecting Columbia and Bard college life in the mid-century. It provides a glance into Dupee's work habits and professional and personal relationships, and into some of his unfinished work.

Letters and other materials by Dupee might also be found in the collections of his friends and colleagues in the RBML, among them the Edward W. Said Papers, the Lionel Trilling papers, the Diana Trilling papers, the Mark Van Doren papers, the George Stade papers, the Meyer Schapiro collection, the Richard Volney Chase papers, the Quentin Anderson papers, and the Richard Poirier collection.

  • Series I: Personal papers and photos, 1831-2005, undated, bulk 1933-1979

    The series is divided into four subseries. Subseries 1 contains Dupee's journals and personal notes and some of his drawings. Most of the items date 1933-1952, but some are undated. Subseries 2 contains correspondences of Mr. and Mrs. Dupee from 1933 to 1999. Subseries 3 contains vital records, photographs of Dupee or taken by Dupee, photographs and genealogy of Dupee's extended family, and some family correspondence. The items in this subseries date back to 1831. Subseries 4 curates souvenirs from Dupee's trips to Mexico in the 1930s, including photographs, books and newspapers from Mexico, journals, and hand-drawn maps of Mexican cities.

  • Series II: Professional materials, 1929-2003, undated

    Materials pertaining to Dupee's work life are found in series II, among them manuscripts, proofs, notes, published essays and reviews, the original annotated draft of Henry James, drafts of memoirs Dupee was writing, and correspondences regarding a collection of American poetry that Dupee was working on. The series also includes reviews of Dupee's work, clippings on Dupee, obituaries, awards, posters and testimonials, correspondence on university appointments, correspondences with editors and publishers, and notes and syllabi from classes Dupee taught at Stanford. Full transcripts of in-depth interviews with Stephen Longstaff and Alan Wald are filed here as well.

  • Series III: Collected magazines and journals, 1924-1989

    Series III includes journals and magazines collected by Dupee, some containing his own work or referring it: among them numerous volumes of The Miscellany (1929-1931) and The New York Review of Books (1963-1983, intermittently), Forum, Yale Literary Magazine, The New Yorker, Literature and Revolution, and many others.

  • Series IV: Collected books, 1778-1983, bulk 1920s-1979

    Series IV provides access to over 100 items from Dupee's library. Most of the items are annotated and/or signed, and could be used in tracking Dupee's work processes as well as his literary relationships. This series is divided into two subseries: one of library books, the other highlighting Dupee's collection of socialist literature, most of which were published in New York in the 1930s.

Using the Collection

Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Restrictions on Access

You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

If you would like to use audiovisual materials in Box 5, please contact the library in advance of your visit to discuss access options.

This collection has no restrictions.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); F. W. (Frederick Wilcox) Dupee Papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

Selected Related Material-- at Columbia

Quentin Anderson Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Richard Volney Chase Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Richard Poirier Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Edward Said Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Meyer Schapiro Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

George Stade Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Diana Trilling Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Lionel Trilling Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Mark Van Doren Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Accruals

Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Source of acquisition--Estate. Date of acquisition--12/3/2013. Accession number--2013-2014-M108.

About the Finding Aid / Processing Information

Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Processing Information

Processed by Efrat Nechushtai (Graduate School of Journalism) 2016.

Finding aid written by Efrat Nechushtai (Graduate School of Journalism) July 2016.

Revision Description

2016-07-08 File created.

2016-07-08 xml document instance created by Catherine C. Ricciardi

2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.

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

Heading "CUL Archives:"
"Portal"
"CUL Collections:"
"CLIO"
"Nat'l / Int'l Archives:"
"ArchivedGRID"
Articles Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Audiotapes Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Correspondence Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Drafts (documents) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Drawings (visual works) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Essays Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Film clips Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Lectures Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Manuscripts for publication Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Maps (documents) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Notes (documents) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Photographs Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Poems Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Posters Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Proofs (printed matter) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Reviews (documents) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
School yearbooks Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
journals (periodicals) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID

Subject

Heading "CUL Archives:"
"Portal"
"CUL Collections:"
"CLIO"
"Nat'l / Int'l Archives:"
"ArchivedGRID"
Adler, Stella Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
American literature -- 20th century Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
American literature -- History and criticism Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
American poetry -- 20th century Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
American poetry -- New York (State) Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Anderson, Quentin, 1912-2003 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Atlas, James Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Authors and publishers -- United States Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Brandeis, Irma, 1905-1990 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Braudy, Leo Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Brinnin, John Malcolm, 1916-1998 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Capote, Truman, 1924-1984 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Chase, Richard Volney, 1914-1962 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Columbia University Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Columbia University -- Faculty Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Criticism -- United States Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Dickstein, Morris Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Dupee, F. W (Frederick Wilcox), 1904-1979 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Edel, Leon, 1907-1997 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Epstein, Jason Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Farrell, James T (James Thomas), 1904-1979 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Flanagan, Thomas, 1923-2002 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Giroux, Robert Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Heaney, Seamus, 1939-2013 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Intellectuals Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
James, Henry, 1843-1916 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Kazin, Alfred, 1915-1998 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Koch, Kenneth, 1925-2002 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Krupnick, Mark, 1939- Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Literature, Modern -- 20th century Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
MacNeice, Louis, 1907-1963 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Macdonald, Dwight Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
McCarthy, Mary, 1912-1989 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Pifer, Drury L Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Poirier, Richard Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Publishers and publishing -- United States Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Rahv, Philip, 1908-1973 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Said, Edward W Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Schapiro, Meyer, 1904-1996 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Schwartz, Delmore, 1913-1966 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Socialism Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Stade, George Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Straus, Dorothea Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Trilling, Diana Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Trilling, Lionel, 1905-1975 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Trotsky, Leon, 1879-1940 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Van Doren, Mark, 1894-1972 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Vidal, Gore, 1925-2012 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Vita-Finzi, Claudio Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Vita-Finzi, Penelope Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Wald, Alan M., 1946- Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Wilson, Edmund, 1895-1972 Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID
Wood, Michael, 1936- Portal CLIO ArchiveGRID

History / Biographical Note

Biographical Note

Frederick Wilcox Dupee (1904-1979) was a prominent American literary critic and scholar, known for his lucid and witty prose. The Columbia University English professor was among the founders of Partisan Review and a regular contributor to publications such as The New York Review of Books and The Nation, authored "The King of the Cats" & Other Remarks on Writers and Writing (1965) and the biography Henry James (1965), and edited The Question of Henry James (1945), Henry James: Autobiography (1956), and editions of Charles Dickens, Gertrude Stein, Marcel Proust, E. E. Cummings and Leon Trotsky.

An Illinois native and Yale graduate, Dupee belonged to the mid-century generation of New York left-wing intellectuals described by Nicholas Lemann as "The American Bloomsbury". For decades, Dupee had been a fixture of the New York literary scene, keeping friendships and correspondences with many of the period's cultural icons. His close friendship with Mary McCarthy was portrayed in an essay she contributed to The Company They Kept (2006).

Dupee started publishing literary reviews in the 1920s. During the 1930s he was a socialist organizer and literary editor for the New Masses. Dupee was hired by Columbia University as Assistant in English in 1940, and became assistant professor at Bard College in 1944. In 1947 he married Barbara ("Andy") Hughes, a recent Bard graduate; the two returned to New York within several years, when Dupee became a Columbia University professor. Dupee was appointed as full professor in 1957, despite never having obtained a graduate degree.

Dupee was an awarded and popular professor, known for his contemporary choices of readings and sometimes unorthodox style of teaching, as well as his support of students during the Columbia University protests of 1968 – documented in an essay he published in The New York Review of Books following the events ("my habitual detachment from campus politics had recently broken down as I saw the students growing more and more desperate," wrote Dupee). After retiring from Columbia in 1971, Dupee and his wife moved to Carmel, California. He maintained connections with West Coast academics and occasionally taught at Stanford. Dupee died in California in 1979, following a medication overdose.