This collection is located on-site.
Portions of this collection are restricted until 2035. Please see the container list for details. In addition, boxes 6-12, 39-46, and 50-52 are entirely closed.
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.
This collection is arranged in five series.
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.
Portions of this collection are restricted until 2035. Please see the container list for details. In addition, boxes 6-12, 39-46, and 50-52 are entirely closed.
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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Herman Wouk papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
The Papers of Victor Wouk, 1934-2004
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Source of acquisition--Wouk, Herman. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--1955. Accession number--M-56-01-24.
Method of acquisition--Parts of the collection were a purchase from Ira Thompson.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Processed Lea Osborne 2007.
Cataloged Lynn A. Grove 09/--/1989.
2008-12-02 File created.
2009-01-13 xml document instance created by Patrick Lawlor
2009-04-24 Edited by Lea Osborne
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
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 (neeĢ 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.
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.
Box 1 Folder 1
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Box 1 Folder 6
Box 1 Folder 7
Box 1 Folder 8
Box 1 Folder 9
Box 2 Folder 1
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Box 2 Folder 3
Box 2 Folder 4
Box 2 Folder 5
Box 2 Folder 6
Box 2 Folder 7
Box 2 Folder 8
Box 2 Folder 9
Box 3 Folder 1 to 3
Box 3 Folder 4
Box 3 Folder 5
Box 3 Folder 6 to 7
Box 3 Folder 8
Box 3 Folder 9
Box 4 Folder 1
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Box 4 Folder 2
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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.
The bulk of Subseries 1 are manuscripts of books. Titles held in this subseries includeThe Caine Mutiny, Aurora Dawn, City Boy, Marjorie Morningstar, This Is My God, Youngblood Hawke, Aurora Dawn, The Caine Mutiny, andThe Will to Go On. These texts mainly span Wouk's early literary career, althoughThe Glorywas 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.
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Box 13 Folder 5 to 6
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Box 18 Folder 1 to 5
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Box 22 Folder 5 to 6
Box 22 Folder 7
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Box 28 Folder 1
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Box 29 Folder 1 to 3
Box 29 Folder 4 to 5
Box 29 Folder 6
1995 August-1996 April
Box 30 Folder 1
1996 May-1996 June
Box 30 Folder 2
1996 July-1999 June
Box 30 Folder 3
1999 July-August
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1995 August-September
Box 30 Folder 5
1996 May
Box 30 Folder 6
1996 May-1997 February
Box 31 Folder 1
1997 May-July
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1999 July-August
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1996 May-June
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1996 June-August
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1997 February-1999 July
Box 31 Folder 6
Box 31 Folder 7
Box 32 Folder 1
Box 32 Folder 2
1996 August-October
Box 32 Folder 3
1996 October-1998 December
Box 32 Folder 4
1999 January-August
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Box 32 Folder 6
Box 33 Folder 1
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Box 33 Folder 5
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Box 34 Folder 6
Box 35 Folder 1
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Box 36 Folder 1
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Box 38 Folder 1
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1999 January-February
Box 38 Folder 4
1999 February-August
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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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This small subseries consists of poems written by Wouk while he was stationed in Hawaii. Like the plays, the subject of these poems is World War II. Wouk brings attention to the faceless individuals from the war, like the Red Cross nurses and various military units, in an effort to personalize a seemingly impersonal experience.
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Subseries 4 is comprised of short essays on a variety of topics including Judaism, relationships, the military, art and theater, and moral dilemmas. Some of the pieces are portraits of fictional characters and the majority of them seem to have been unpublished. As is the case with Wouk's other writings, these short stories exist in multiple draft form, both handwritten and typed, and contain much annotation and notes from Wouk himself.
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Box 51 Folder 11
Series III contains topical files such as documents relating to Wouk's work on the Adlai Stevenson presidential campaign, speeches, printed material, records from Wouk's time in the United States Navy including coursework, notes, and drawings. There is also a small amount of personal documents in the form of newspaper articles about Wouk, records pertaining to his United States citizenship, and religious documents. Of particular interest are two oversized posters from Israel, one advertising a 1955 performance of The Caine Mutiny " by the Habimah Theatre Troupe and the other a 1967 lecture given by Herman Wouk for the Hebrew Writer's Union entitled "American Jewry and Israel."
Box 51 Folder 12
Box 51 Folder 13
Mapcase 14-L-2
Mapcase 14-O-3
Box 52 Folder 1
Box 52 Folder 2
Mapcase 14-L-2
Box 52 Folder 3
Box 52 Folder 4
Mapcase 14-L-2
Box 52 Folder 5
Box 52 Folder 6
Box 52 Folder 7
Box 52 Folder 8
Box 52 Folder 9
Box 52 Folder 10
Box 54
Box 53 Folder 11
Photographs of Herman Wouk, Victor Wouk, other family members, friends and admirers are held in this series. The bulk of the photographs are in regards to Wouk's writings. Examples are research photographs taken of specific military and geographical locations and production shots from plays and radio broadcasts.
Box 53 Folder 12
Box 53 Folder 13
Box 53 Folder 1
Box 53 Folder 2
Box 53 Folder 3
Box 53 Folder 4
Series V is composed of audio visual material in a variety of formats. Most of the recordings are of Wouk himself giving lectures, addresses, or reading from his works. Also in this series are an educational filmstrip with accompanying audio cassette soundtrack for The Caine Mutiny classroom materials and recordings of the original soundtracks from the movie version of Marjorie Morningstar and the television production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
Box 53
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Mapcase 14-L-2
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