This collection is located on-site.
Digital files can be accessed upon request via a secure laptop in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's Reading Room. Otherwise, this collection has no restrictions.
Some materials currently housed in a temporary boxes will be reboxed, but all items are accessible at this time. Please note that the final diary has a very fragile binding and should be handled with care.
Pamela Moore (1937-1964) was an American novelist, best known for Chocolates for Breakfast (1956). Although Moore's career was short, the collection contains a wealth of documentation about her life and writings during this period. The papers contain correspondence, clippings, contracts, diaries, drafts, manuscripts, memorabilia, photographs, notebooks, notes, outlines, proofs, school materials, sketch books, and a collection of published editions of Moore's novels.
The collection also includes materials related to Moore's unpublished works, including articles, novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. The collection contains a significant amount of materials for both Prophets Without Honor and Kathy, including contracts, notes, notebooks, outlines, typescripts, and other materials. These are also working files for several other projects that include character sketches, notes, synopses, and manuscripts of varying lengths. There are also typescripts for poems and several short stories, and some materials related to ideas for plays. The collection includes notes, typescripts for both published and unpublished articles, as well as copies of Moore's published articles. In many cases, Moore's unpublished works are untitled, so some manuscripts may be found to be related to one another or to larger novel projects upon further examination of the available records.
The collection includes contracts, outlines, typescripts, setting copies, and other materials related to Moore's published novels. The collection lacks a full typescript for render"italic">The Exile of Suzy Q, but includes working files with typescript pages. For Chocolates for Breakfast and The Pigeons of St. Marks / East Side Story / Diana, which went through some revisions, there are multiple typescripts and revisions in the collection. There are several published editions of all of Moore's novels in the collection, as well, primarily of foreign editions of her works.
The collection also includes material related to Moore's professional activities, including correspondence, contracts, clippings files, financial records, photographs, and memorabilia.
Moore's papers contain many personal materials, including books, correspondence, diaries, financial records, a passport, photographs, receipts, school records, sketchbooks, and travel notes. These records shed light on Moore's relationships with her husband, her family, and with Edouard de Laurot, among others. Later correspondence and notes by others also shed light on Moore's life and work. Lastly, Moore's diaries provide insight into her family life, emotional life, relationships, social life, travel, writings, and ultimately, in her final diary entries, her suicide.
The collection includes printed materials related to Moore's life and work. There are several editions of Moore's published novels; these are primarily foreign editions. The editions include original editions of Moore's novels, as well as foreign editions based upon the Harper Perennial edition of Chocolates for Breakfast (2013). The printed materials also include several books owned by Moore, several of which are inscribed to her, or signed by her. A few of these also relate to equestrians who knew and worked with Moore.
A copy of the catalog prepared the literacy agency for this collection is included with the papers. The catalog provides more detailed subject information and context on correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, and other materials in the collection. While the final arrangement and organization of the collection differs from the catalog, it is still a valuable resource.
Series I: Manuscripts and Related Materials, 1942-2013 [Bulk Dates: 1950-1964]
This series includes manuscripts as well as related materials such as drafts, notes, notebooks, outlines, and proofs.
Contracts for first editions were originally filed with the corresponding manuscripts, and are included in this series. Additional contracts are filed in Subseries II.2: Contracts.
In general, any related correspondence is filed in the professional correspondence files in Subseries II.1.
Series II: Professional Files, 1956-1964, 1987, 2002-2011
This series contains correspondence, contracts, clippings files, and items Moore received from her publisher René Julliard.
There are also some professional topics covered in the correspondence, financial, tax, and legal files in Series III: Personal and Biographical Materials.
Series III: Personal and Biographical Materials, 1948-2013 [Bulk Dates: 1948-1964]
This series contains personal and family correspondence, diaries, official documents, school files, sketchbooks, travel notes, and a set of financial, tax, and legal files.
Photographs are filed in Series IV: Photographs.
Series IV: Photographs, 1939-1964, undated
This series contains both personal and professional photographs of Moore and Moore's family.
Series V: Printed Materials, 1956-2016
This series contains various editions of Moore's books, books owned by Moore, and a few additional items that are related to Moore.
Series VI: Literary Agent's Catalog of Archival Collection, circa 2017
This series contains a copy of the literary agent's catalog of the collection available for purchase. The catalog includes detailed information and subject analysis on correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, and other materials in the collection.
Please note that most of the interviews described in the catalog on pages 43-44 were never received by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. There is material related to interviews with Jonas Mekas and Michael "Dandy Kim" Caborn-Waterfield in Series VIII: Digital Materials.
Series VII: Archived Web Site, 2018
This series contains a web site capture of the Chocolates for Breakfast website, http://chocolatesforbreakfast.info/, created by Moore's son, Kevin Kanarek. Many (but not all) of the photographs of Moore, as well as editions of the book, are of materials contained in this collection.
The archived site is here:http://chocolatesforbreakfast.info/
Series VIII: Digital Materials, 2010-2014
This series includes two audio files and one transcript of Kevin Kanarek's interviews with persons related to Moore. There is an audio file for an interview with Jonas Mekas. There is an audio file and a corresponding transcript for an interview with Michael "Dandy Kim" Caborn-Waterfield (the model for "Andrew Neville" in Chocolates for Breakfast); the transcript is available digitally as a pdf and a printed copy of the file has been placed in Box 19 Folder 13.
The series also includes clips of two interviews on subjects related to Moore. Both were done by outside sources, and may be available elsewhere. The first is a video clip of Courtney Love speaking about how she was named after Courtney Farrel, the protagonist of Chocolates for Breakfast, giving her reading of the story, and discussing the overlap between the book and her own life (from VH1, 2010). The second is an audio clip of Jonas Mekas discussing his association with Edouard (Yves) De Laurot, including de Laurot's wartime past and their short-lived collaboration on Mekas' first film, Guns of the Trees (from Web of Stories, 2013).
This collection is arranged in seven series and several subseries.
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 on-site.
Digital files can be accessed upon request via a secure laptop in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's Reading Room. Otherwise, this collection has no restrictions.
Some materials currently housed in a temporary boxes will be reboxed, but all items are accessible at this time. Please note that the final diary has a very fragile binding and should be handled with care.
Reproductions 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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Pamela Moore Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
No additional material is expected.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
2017.2018.M104: Source of acquisition--Kevin Kanarek (Represented by Sarah Funke-Butler). Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--2018.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Papers processed by Catherine C. Ricciard in October 2018. A small addition of a few files was processed in November 2019.
Finding aid written by Catherine C. Ricciardi in November 2018, and revised in November 2019.
2018-09-07 File created.
2018-11-02 XML document instance created by Catherine C. Ricciardi
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
2019-11-19 Finding aid was updated by Catherine C. Ricciardi. A few files of additional material were added to the collection.
2022-10-12 Finding aid was updated by Catherine C. Ricciardi. Description of digital materials in Series VIII added.
Pamela Moore was born on September 22, 1937, the daughter of Donald and Isabel Moore (née Walsh). Both of Moore's parents were writers. They had married in 1934, and Isabel's young daughter, Elaine, had adopted Moore's surname after their marriage. By the mid-1940s, the Moores had divorced, and Pamela Moore split time between her father in California and her mother in New York.
While studying at Barnard College, Moore published her first book Chocolates for Breakfast in 1956. The first American edition of the book was published in September 1956, at the start of Moore's senior year. As Moore had planned to spend her senior year in France, she had already left the county when the edition was published in the United States. The novel became a bestseller not only in the United States, but also in Italy and France. The book went into multiple printings and was translated into several languages. The book gained notoriety for its content, which was uncommon for the 1950s, and it was compared to Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan at the time. Moore spent much of the next two years in Europe, returning to the United States in the spring of 1958.
Moore was educated at Rosemary Hall (now Choate Rosemary Hall) and Barnard College. While Moore was matriculated with the Class of 1957 at Barnard College, it appears that she received her diploma in 1958 from the records in the collection.
Moore married Adam Kanarek shortly after returning to the United States in 1958. The couple settled in New York, where Kanarek was studying at Brooklyn Law School. They had one son, Kevin, in 1963.
Moore wrote another novel during this period, Prophets Without Honor, but it remains unpublished. Moore had started this novel in Europe, and it was based upon her relationship with Edouard de Laurot, whom she had met on her way to France in 1956. Knopf had bought the novel based upon an outline, but rejected the finished manuscript when it diverged significantly from the original outline and ultimately rescinded its contract.
Moore published three additional novels after Chocolates for Breakfast but none of these matched the success of her first novel. Moore's next novel was rejected by American publishers, and published as Les Pigeons de Saint Marc by Julliard in France (1960) and as East Side Story by Longmans (1961). The book received favorable reviews in France and was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement in the United Kingdom, but it did not receive much notice otherwise. The development of a screenplay for Chocolates for Breakfast was also explored during this period, but ultimately the project did not move forward. Moore's next novel, L'Exil de Suzy-Cœur, was published only in France (1962), and Moore and Kanarek travelled to Europe for its publication. Moore's last novel, The Horsy Set, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1963, but it did not sell well, and did not receive reviews in prominent magazines or literary publications.
Moore continued to write, and began work on a novel tentatively titled Kathy, which had grown out of her revisions to Prophets Without Honor. The novel remained unfinished at the time of Moore's death.
Moore died by suicide on June 7, 1964, at her home in New York City.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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