This collection is located on-site.
Restrictions pertaining to individual items are noted in the container list.
Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, and printed materials by and about John Howard Griffin. The correspondence is extensive and includes letter from Jacques Maritain; Thomas Merton; Maxwell Geismar; Eldridge Cleaver; Robert Casadeus; Abraham Rattner; P.D. East; Joseph Noonan; Sarah Patton Boyle; Lillian Smith; Father August Thompson; Nell Dorr; and Brother Patrick Hart. All of his major works are represented in manuscript form (usually typescript, carbon). In addition there are many original photographs by Griffin, which he pasted throughout his extensive journal, 1950-1980. This journal is a remarkable account of his life and thoughts, extending to over 3,000 pages.
This collection is arranged into 23 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.
Restrictions pertaining to individual items are noted in the container list.
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); John Howard Griffin Papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Thomas Merton Papers.
There is a Griffin collection at the Harry Ransom Research Center. University of Texas at Austin
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Purchase 1995.
Source of acquisition--Mrs. Thelma Anderson. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--June 2004 (with a subsequent addition in May 2005).
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Processed by the Robert Bonazzi and Patrick Lawlor, 2003. The extensive and informative notes are by Robert Bonazzi.
2009-06-26 File created.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
2020-09-17 Edits to access, use, and description notes for materials in Box 14 Folder 511 and related Negatives (Photographs) created by CCR.
John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) was born in Mansfield, Texas. His early training was as a musicologist in Tours, France specializing in Gregorian Chant. He studied psychology, specializing in the effects of music on the mentally disturbed. He also studied photography and became an expert portrait photography.
During WWII he help Jews in France escape the Nazis. After the fall of France, he joined the U. S. Army Air Corps and was sent to the South Pacific to work with the native islanders. Injured by a bomb blast he gradually lost his sight, becoming totally blind by 1947. During his blindness he wrote his two major novels The Devil Rides Outside and Nuni as well as numerous short stories. In 1951 he became a Roman Catholic. After recovering his sight in 1957, he wrote for Sepia magazine and in 1959 he wrote a series of articles for Sepia magazine based on his travels through the Deep South as a "black" man. This series was published as Black Like Me in 1961.
In 1969 he was appointed the Official Biographer of Thomas Merton. Throughout his life he wrote and lectured widely on race relation and social justice. He died in 1980 at the age of sixty.
Box 1 Folder 1
Box 1 Folder 2
Box 1 Folder 3
Box 1 Folder 4
Box 1 Folder 5
[Inscribed "Howard Griffin, Lycée Descartes"
Box 1 Folder 6
Box 1 Folder 7
[Griffin's study "especially prepared for those who are in close contact with the blind". The text covers such areas as: "What Blindness Should Be to the Blind." "The Role of Those Who Live with the Blind." "The Role of Fear." "Potentialities for Overcoming the Handicap Ways to Financial Independence." "Marriage and Children." "The Intimate Life." "Religion." Plus notes for mini chapters on Interests, Travel, A House Guest, A Hotel Guest, Clerks in Stores, and Mechanical Aids. Unpublished. The text's last six pages contain a series of "Observations on. Blindness and Suggestions for Those Who See," which are short, compelling remarks that sum up his philosophy most effectively.
Box 1 Folder 8
[There is no record of this manuscript having been published
Box 1 Folder 9
Box 1 Folder 10
[Penciled notes are not in Griffin's handwriting
Box 1 Folder 11
Box 1 Folder 12
Box 1 Folder 13
Box 1 Folder 14
Box 1 Folder 15
[Monk and spiritual mentor to John Howard Griffin
Box 1 Folder 16
[French pianist and composer; musical mentor to John Howard Griffin. Five posted from Princeton, NJ; two on letterhead of the School of Music, American Art Schools of Fontainebleau; others posted from concert stops in St. Louis, Cleveland, and Miami; 25 pages (front and back combined); and four Autograph Envelopes
Box 1 Folder 17
[With photocopy of t.l., signed by Claude Levi-Strauss, French Ambassador and Minister of Culture, concerning Griffin's acceptance to study music; t.l., signed by Mary Crennan. on Columbia Concerts letterhead to Griffin, regarding his query as to Casadesus' concert schedule, November 30, 1945
Box 1 Folder 18
[With a carbon letter from Griffin to Jean Casadesus, July 28, 1963; form Letter of the Robert Casadesus Society to Griffin, signed by Therese Casadesus-Rawson, for the Organizing Committee; November 24, 1974 -Carbon of Typed Letter from Griffin to Therese Casadesus-Rawson, concerning his memory of her as the childhood daughter of Gaby and Robert Casadesus during which she nicknamed himle grand ours, November 30, 1974
Box 1 Folder 19
Box 1 Folder 20
Box 1 Folder 21
[Jean Casadesus was pianist-in-residence at SUNY, from 1965 until his death in January of 1972, in an automobile accident; he was 44
Box 1 Folder 22
[In French. French poet, close friend of Picasso, Braque, etc.; he died in 1961.
Box 1 Folder 23
[World-renowned violinist
Box 1 Folder 24
[In French
Box 1 Folder 25
[In French
Box 1 Folder 26-30
[American painter who studied in Paris where he became friends with the Cubists and Surrealists. These letters were written in 1943 and 1944 while Griffin was a Sergeant in the Air Force 424 Bomber Squadron, serving in the South Pacific. The letters written from 1945 to 1949 cover the years of Griffin's return from the war, preparations for a trip to France (where he delivered packages of clothing for Rattner to the artist's friends in France), and also Griffin's return from France to live on a farm in Mansfield, Texas (then completely blind).
Box 1 Folder 31
Box 1 Folder 32-43
[The first draft of Griffin's first novel. Sent as a gift to Sally Gillespie. In reading the manuscript it becomes obvious that the news stories surrounding the novel's composition--stories which were promulgated by the Smith brothers who owned Smiths, Inc. of Fort Worth--were inaccurate: Griffin did not write a 900 plus page manuscript which was cut nearly one-third by the editor/publisher Gordon Smith; the novel did not begin as a non-fiction account of Griffin's experience at the Abbey of Solemes, the Benedictine motherhouse of Gregorian Chant.. The novel varies from the final Smiths published version in relatively minor ways. It does not open with the scene of the anonymous American musicologist being driven to the old monastery by the cab driver, but begins with the narrator in his monastic cell (which is the second scene of the published version). The original manuscript has a short Epilogue which was dropped from the published book. That Epilogue was Part III, whereas the book has only two parts, entitled ."The Cloister Within" and "The Devil Without". The original manuscript simply calls these first two parts, "The Monastery" and. "The Village." Otherwise, the manuscript runs closely to the published book. This does not indicate Griffin made several complete drafts from this 1947 first draft to the galley stage, in 1951. (The novel was published in 1952). It indicates that some sections were added later and some cutting was done from the original manuscript. The massive, poorly-written, obscenity-riddled typescript of 900 pages is a fiction of the publisher. Also, the press releases from The Smiths which referred to Griffin's blindness and his war heroics were considered in bad taste by the author. He preferred to use a pseudonym which he had used (several in fact) when he submitted magazines work. Several pieces were published under the name Lew Smollett and no mention of the author's blindness or war experiences were included. Griffin discusses these times in his letters to Sally Gillespie (see Series VII)
Box 2 Folder 44
Box 2 Folder 45
Box 2 Folder 46
Box 2 Folder 47
Box 2 Folder 48
Box 2 Folder 49
[Pages 102 - 111 of the book [Missing after exhibit]
Box 2 Folder 50
Box 2 Folder 51
[Legal discussion of the Butler vs. Michigan case (Griffin's novel was the focus of a test case put forth by Pocket Books, publisher of the paperbackDevil)
Box 2 Folder 52
Box 2 Folder 53
Box 2 Folder 54
Box 2 Folder 55
Box 2 Folder 56
Box 2 Folder 57
Box 2 Folder 58
[Re. playscript ofDevil
Box 2 Folder 59
[Re. playscript ofDevil
Box 2 Folder 60
[With two related letters concerning a Polish edition ofThe Devil Rides Outside
Box 2 Folder 61
Box 2 Folder 62
Box 2 Folder 63
Box 2 Folder 64
[Regarding reading fromDevil
Box 2 Folder 65
[Requisition to reprintDevil
Box 2 Folder 66
[ Regarding reprintingThe Devil Rides Outside
Box 2 Folder 67
[Dedicated to Abraham Rattner
Box 2 Folder 68
[About a young boy growing up blind on a farm. This is a more successful reworking of "The Cage". It was submitted to magazines 1951-1953 (unpublished)
Box 2 Folder 69
[Fictional rendering of an actual trip Griffin made to Galveston (unpublished)
Box 2 Folder 70
Box 2 Folder 71
[Vignette about blind man going to town (unpublished)
Box 2 Folder 72
[Reprint of story that appeared originally inCatholic World.
Box 2 Folder 73
[Lecture outline
Box 2 Folder 74
[Story about blind farm boy who raises livestock. Griffin's first published short story
Box 2 Folder 75
[Profile of Griffin. Reveals that Lew Smollett is really Griffin
Box 2 Folder 76
Box 2 Folder 77
[On being a writing member of the Silent Generation
Box 2 Folder 78
Box 2 Folder 79
Box 2 Folder 80
Box 2 Folder 81
[Unpublished
Box 2 Folder 82
[Unpublished. Sequel to "Sauce for the Gander"
Box 2 Folder 83
[ Third draft. Unpublished short story which is reminiscent ofThe Devil Rides Outsidein that it takes place in a monastery and portrays similar monk characters
Box 2 Folder 84
[2nd draft?
Box 2 Folder 85
Box 2 Folder 86
[Short story about working in the French Underground based on Griffin's actual experience
Box 2 Folder 87
Box 2 Folder 88
Box 2 Folder 89
Box 2 Folder 90
Box 2 Folder 91
Box 2 Folder 92
[Unpublished
Box 2 Folder 93
Box 2 Folder 94
[2nd draft(?)
Box 2 Folder 95
[3rd draft(?)
Box 2 Folder 96
Box 2 Folder 97
[Unpublished
Box 2 Folder 98
[Early draft of "The Cause" a story published inThe John Howard Griffin Reader
Box 3 Folder 99
Box 3 Folder 100
[Unpublished. Based on a 1953 trip to the Bowery with Clyde Holland
Box 3 Folder 101
[Humorous vignettes, published inThe John Howard Griffin Reader
Box 3 Folder 102
[Unpublished
Box 3 Folder 103
[Also a copy of a letter from Father Lamfamboise and an offprint of the original French text. . Besides translating his own fiction from the French, Griffin spoke both of his novels,The Devil Rides OutsideandNuni, into a wire-recorder, in French, and then transcribed the novels into English. He translated various other French texts. Few were published but he made these translations as much to keep himself bilingual and for the intrinsic value of what he translated. During this period he was also receiving tapes, in both English and French, from Jacques Maritain, Father Stanley Murphy, and Gerald Vann, the British Dominican scholar. He considered it all part of his continuing classical education in language, in philosophy, and in theology. He speaks also of translating some of Albert Camus' novelThe Strangerinto English, but none of those pages have been found. In his Journals there are various letters and short texts translated into English for his own purposes.
Box 3 Folder 104
[This is a piece written about the Benedictine monastery located between Mexico City and Cuernavaca . One of Griffin's abiding passions was the study of the monastic life. In the case of this piece, he did hope to publish it but was not successful. Nonetheless, in writing it, he was consistent in his ongoing interest in monasticism. Several of his short stories of this period are about characters in monasteries--both serious, like "Metamorphosis" and comic, like the Friar Clud stories. His first novel,The Devil Rides Outside, takes place in part in a monastery. Relating in general to this passion for the monastic life are his lectures on Gregorian Chant, combining the roots of monasticism with the flower of medieval music.
Box 3 Folder 105
Box 3 Folder 106
Box 13 Folder 451
Box 3 Folder 107
Box 3 Folder 108
Box 3 Folder 109
Box 3 Folder 110
Box 3 Folder 111
Box 3 Folder 112
Box 3 Folder 113
Box 3 Folder 114
Box 3 Folder 115
Box 3 Folder 116
Box 3 Folder 117
Box 3 Folder 118
Box 3 Folder 119
Box 3 Folder 120
These are the three novels drafted by Griffin during the 1950s while he was still sightless. Only Nuni was published, in 1956. One chapter from Street was published as a short story in 1957.
Box 3 Folder 121
[The final draft of the novel, complete with the author's changes and comments in longhand.. The original manuscript, as well as the manuscripts forThe Devil Rides OutsideandLand of the High Sky(all published between 1952 and 1959) have not survived. The publishers have indicated that the original manuscripts were returned to Griffin. Yet it is the carbons he kept in his archives which reveal his working process. . The carbons reveal all of his changes. Either he used these carbons for his own purposes, to catalog the changes made on the originals or even on the galleys (for no galleys survive either), or the typesetting of the galleys was made directly from these carbons
Box 3 Folder 123
Box 3 Folder 124
[ With photocopy of renewal document from Houghton Mifflin.
Box 3 Folder 125
Box 3 Folder 126
[Canadian critic
Box 3 Folder 127
Box 4 Folder 138
Box 4 Folder 139
Box 4 Folder 140
[A list of words and phrases "used by the natives of a group of islands in the South Pacific".
Box 3 Folder 128
Box 3 Folder 129
Box 3 Folder 130
Concerning Griffin's novels,The Street of the Seven AngelsandPassacaglia, it is necessary to outline the genesis of his creative process as regards these works begun in the mid-1950s. . Initially, all of this material was intended for one large novel, tentatively entitled "Point, Counterpoint," but when Griffin heard that Huxley had published a novel with that title, he began to rethink his concept. His journals indicate that the large novel was really made up of alternating chapters with two sets of characters (although a few characters cross from one story to the other). One, which becameStreet, focused on the character of Chez Durand, a bookshop owner, who becomes involved in an obscenity trial; this story features a large cast of characters and is comic in intent. The second novel,Passacaglia, is a serious work about a concert pianist and his illegitimate son--also a pianist. . The manuscript herein calledPassacaoliais actually the remnants of the larger novel (207 pages of typescript carbon) which was never completed. The manuscript ofStreet of the Seven Angelsis a 221 page typescript, an original he revised from portions of the carbon, from 1966-1972. He intended to publishStreetas his third novel and even though he came under contract with Houghton Mifflin for the work, it was never published. He never returned to do a revision ofPassacaglia. A reading ofStreetwill reveal that it has been revised and completed, but a reading of the carbon ofPassacaolia--which has gaps in pagination, as well as many adjustments (as many as five changes on some pages)--never received any revision.
Box 3 Folder 131 & 132
Box 3 Folder 133 & 134
[Incomplete. Pages from an unfinished novel
Box 4 Folder 135
[There is also a hand-drawn map by Griffin of the quarter of Paris in which the action takes place. [missing 11/20/2000-PL]
Box 4 Folder 136
[Features two page plot outline, and three page character sketches of both the main characters.
Box 4 Folder 137
This is Griffin's working carbon of the first draft, containing his hand-written changes and cuts. The 336 page manuscript, initially entitled A Land Full of Sky is more than 100 pages longer than the published book. The story of how this book project came into being can be found in the notes by Bradford Daniel.
Box 4 Folder 141
Box 4 Folder 142-152
[The following are brief textual notes on the manuscript: The "Preface" was reprinted inThe John Howard Griffin Reader. It also discusses the genesis of this unique project. . "Eighteen Covered Wagons" (Chapter I of the manuscript) was cut by one-third for the published book. This book version was reprinted inThe Readerand in the anthology,A Part of Space(TCU Press).. "The Frontier Fights West" (Chapter 2 of the manuscript) was divided into four chapters in the book: "Comanche Country" (2), "Frontiersmen Move West" (3), "Struggle to Survive" (4), and "Cattle Country" (5). . "Windmill Town" (Chapter 3 of the manuscript) became Chapter 6 of the book--without any major changes, except that the final 22 mss. pages became Chapter 7 ("Cowboy") in the published version. This chapter about cowboys was reprinted inThe Reader. . "The Love Letters of Bessie Love" (pages 228-249 of the manuscript) was cut from the published book. That chapter was published for the first time inThe John Howard Griffin Reader.. "Shepherds and Bankers" (Chapter 4 of the manuscript) became Chapter 8. "No Need to Steal" (Chapter 5 of ms.) became Chapter 9 of the book. Both these chapters were published without major cuts and maintained their original titles. . "The Impossible" (Chapter 6 of the manuscript) became Chapter 10 of the book . "Three Booms and A City" (Chapter 7 of the manuscript) became Chapters 11 and 12 of the book; Chapter 12 was entitled "Today and Tomorrow."
Box 4 Folder 153
Box 4 Folder 153A
[With Griffin's ms. annotations
Box 4 Folder 154
[With related material
Box 4 Folder 155
Box 4 Folder 156
Box 4 Folder 157
Box 4 Folder 158
Box 4 Folder 159
Box 4 Folder 160
Box 4 Folder 161
[This document gives us the background in Mansfield and the historical chronology of the situation from 1948 through 1956; this portion runs for six and one-half pages, followed by one and one-half pages of personal impressions by Griffin. The remainder of the document is made up of interviews with some of the participants, as well as further analysis.
Box 4 Folder 162
Box 4 Folder 163
Box 4 Folder 164
Box 4 Folder 165
[The French composer, who was a close friend of the Casadesus family, responds to a letter from Griffin (no carbon of that Griffin letter was in the archives).
Box 4 Folder 166
[There are no original Poulenc letters. Poulenc, thinking Griffin was a priest, bared his soul to the young American during the time he was composing his great religious work, "Dialogue of the Carmelites." Included in this folder is a photocopy of Griffin's article, "The Poulenc Behind the Mask," published in Ramparts, in 1964. This piece sets the letters in context and provides perspective to the relationship.
Box 4 Folder 167
[Dominican theologian. Father Vann was an early champion of Griffin's first novel,The Devil Rides Outside, defending the book against the criticism of Catholic clergy in the United States and England (Vann was British). Griffin considered Vann to be among his spiritual mentors (along with Jacques Maritain and Thomas Merton), and he was greatly influenced by Fr. Vann's commentary on The Book of John (The Eagle's Word)
Box 4 Folder 168-171
[Father Murphy was director of the Christian Culture Series for nearly 30 years and on the faculty of Assumption University, Windsor, Ontario. Griffin spoke in the series a half dozen times and was awarded the Christian Culture Medal (1966). These letters are vibrant, personal and intelligently opinionated. Fr. Murphy was a loyal defender of Griffin's work and was a radical critic of racism in the Catholic Church. The men were close friends, visited each other every year, and were together with Jacques Maritain and Thomas Merton when those two friends visited for the last time at the Abbey of Gethsemani, in 1966
Box 4 Folder 171
[Includes promotional materials from the Christian Culture Series
Box 4 Folder 172-174
[Included is a significant 8 page letter from 1957; there are 40 letters from 1962, many concerning racism andBlack Like Me
Box 4 Folder 175
[The bibliography is of Griffin's writings
Box 4 Folder 176
Box 4 Folder 177
[Inquiring about the possibility of writing a novel of the southwest that "will observe a picture of the daily lives and customs of the Spanish-Americans." However, nothing came of this project.
Box 4 Folder 178
Box 5 Folder 179-192
[Often, his salutations simply read "Dear Girls". Griffin includes messages for many of their mutual friends in Taos during those years--the painter Andrew Dasberg and his wife, Helen; the painter Robert Ellis and his wife, Rosa, and daughter, Erendira; as well as other neighbors and friends, many of them also artists and writers. These letters are full of personal disclosures (about his publishers, famous artists, civil rights activists, mutual friends, and family); there is a lot of behind-the-scenes information about Griffin's Published books and working manuscripts, as well as remarks about photography and music. Only about 25 letters from the various Gillespie sisters survive, and these are included in the Series. All three Gillespie sisters have passed away.
Box 5 Folder 193 - 197
[The Sussmans are both writers. Cornelia has four novels to her credit and Irving has two books of literary criticism. As a team, they published their most important books:How To Read A Dirty Book, which discusses both the censorship trials ofThe Devil Rides OutsideandBlack Like Me;Profiles in Hope, which has a chapter on Griffin; and their biography of Thomas Merton, published by MacMillan, featuring a Griffin photographic portrait of the monk as its cover. . Griffin considered the Sussmans part of his adopted literary family because they were contemporaries who were conversant with his own spiritual influences: Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Thomas Merton, Robert and Gaby Casadesus, as well as the great saints (in particular, St Thomas Aquinas). He wrote them as freely and openly as he wrote anyone and, during the 1970s, they were his most intimate friends
Box 6 Folder 198-200
[These bound volumes were given to Elizabeth Griffin-Bonazzi as a gift from the Sussmans.. There is a photograph of Griffin by Irving Sussman in volume 1 and original photographs throughout
Box Manuscript Box [Vault]
[This is the only typescript made by Griffin--from both hisSepiaseries, "Journey into Shame," and his journals of the aftermath--of the bestseller for which he is best known. The manuscript is in superb condition, separated by fly-sheets, and stored in a manuscript box.. This working copy of the original typescript includes all of the editor's suggestions, as well as the author's revisions
Box 6 Folder 201
Box 6 Folder 202
Box 6 Folder 203
[Cash, a Mansfield resident, who, with several boyhood friends, claim that they are the ones who hung Griffin's effigy in downtown Mansfield after the publication ofBlack Like Me. The tale is entertaining but not quite convincing. The original manuscript is in the files of the Mansfield Historical Society
Box 6 Folder 204
Box 6 Folder 205
Box 6 Folder Folder 206
Box 6 Folder 207-210
Box 6 Folder 211
Box 6 Folder 212
Box 6 Folder 213
Box 6 Folder 214
Box 6 Folder 215
Box 6 Folder 216
Box 6 Folder 217
Box 6 Folder 218
Box 6 Folder 219
[With 2 page enclosure
Box 6 Folder 220
Box 6 Folder 221
Box 6 Folder 222
[With enclosures
Box 6 Folder 223
[With related material
Box 6 Folder 224
[Re. damage to negatives
Box 6 Folder 225
[Re. reviews
Box 7 Folder 226
[With related material
Box 7 Folder 227
Box 7 Folder 228
[Re. the civil action brought against Griffin accusing him of injuring a 13-year-old boy by writingBlack Like Me
Box 7 Folder 229
[Re. Braille transcription ofBlack Like Me
Box 7 Folder 230
Box 7 Folder 231
Box 7 Folder 232
Box 7 Folder 233
Box 7 Folder 234
Box 7 Folder 235
Box 7 Folder 236
Box 7 Folder 237
[With related items
Box 7 Folder 238
[With related items
Box 7 Folder 239
Box 7 Folder 240
[Photographer forBlack Like Me
Box 7 Folder 241
Box 7 Folder 241
Box 7 Folder 242
[With related material
Box 7 Folder 243
[With related material
Box 7 Folder 244
Box 7 Folder 245
Box 7 Folder 246
[With reply
Box 7 Folder 247
[With related items
Box 7 Folder 248
Box 7 Folder 249
Box 7 Folder 250
Box 7 Folder 251
Box 7 Folder 252
Box 7 Folder 253
[The translation was made by Dr. Juan Hernandez-Senter, at the invitation of the Griffin Estate, in 1989. This authorized translation has not been published. Translated from the New American Library Penguin paperback edition, it does not include that Signet edition's "Epilogue," which will be added, along with an introduction, if the translation is published.
Box 7 Folder 254
Box 7 Folder 255
[Inscribed by Elizabeth and Robert Bonazzi, 31 March 1997
By examining these typescripts in relation to the published pieces--both the Dialogue and the Journal article--we get a close look at Griffin's method. The Correspondence from this period--between Griffin and Fr. Thompson; between Griffin and Ramparts editor/publisher Ed Keating; between Griffin and Bishop Greco (Fr Thompson's superior); as well as the correspondences of the priest and the bishop (and both of these men with Keating of Ramparts)--document an interesting struggle that all experienced. Bishop Greco tried to block the interview on the grounds that Fr. Thompson's documented experience of racism by the Church would not be good for the Church. Eventually, the interview ran, setting off a controversy that reached beyond Bishop Greco's diocese to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the US during the 1960s.
Box 8 Folder 256
[Intended forThe Saturday Evening Post, but never published
Box 8 Folder 257
Box 8 Folder 258
[Published inTexas Observerunder the title "The Shine Boy Has His Dream"
Box 8 Folder 259
Box 8 Folder 260
Box 8 Folder 261
[With a photocopy of the published review inThe Saturday Review
Box 8 Folder 262
Box 8 Folder 263
Box 8 Folder 264
Box 8 Folder 265
Box 8 Folder 266
Box 8 Folder 267
[The published version of his interview with Father A. Thompson
Box 8 Folder 268
Box 8 Folder 269
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 270
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 271
[With photocopy of a review of the book by Katherine Court
Box 8 Folder 272
[Became both a monograph published by the University of Iowa and a text on microfiche at Columbia University--entitled "Racial Equality: Myth and Reality"
Box 8 Folder 273
Box 8 Folder 274
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 275
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 276
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 277
Box 8 Folder 278
Box 8 Folder 279
Box 8 Folder 280
Box 8 Folder 281 & 282
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 283
[Unpublished
Box 8 Folder 284
[Published in the bookletThe Singing Boys of Mexico
Box 8 Folder 285
Box 8 Folder 286
[Article by Griffin and Professor Robert T. Owens; intended forRamparts, but unpublished.
Box 8 Folder 287
[ForTeachers College Record
Box 8 Folder 288
Box 8 Folder 289
Box 8 Folder 290
Box 8 Folder 291 & 292
Box 8 Folder 293
Box 8 Folder 294
Box 9 Folder 295
Box 9 Folder 296
Box 9 Folder 297
[Published title "The Prude and the Lewd"
Box 9 Folder 298
[With autograph postcard from Gabriel Cousin, 1965
Box 9 Folder 299
[Published inRamparts
Box 9 Folder 300
Box 9 Folder 301
Box 9 Folder 302
Box 9 Folder 303
Box 9 Folder 304
Box 9 Folder 305
Box 9 Folder 306
[With copies of 4 Griffin letters re. Rouault'sPassionseries
Box 9 Folder 307; 319-321
[Griffin's follow-up book toBlack Like Me
Box 9 Folder 308
[Epilogue I toThe Church and the Black Man
Box 9 Folder 309
[Epilogue II toThe Church and the Black Man
Box 9 Folder 310
[With a press release and memo re. publicity program for the book
Box 9 Folder 311
Box 9 Folder 312
Box 9 Folder 313
[With carbon of Griffin's t.l. to Clarizio
Box 9 Folder 314
[Broderick, Director of Caribbean Affairs, had published a study about urban problems that was circulated to federal and Catholic organizations, as well as to such individuals as Griffin, whoseBlack Like MeandThe Church and the Black ManBroderick greatly admired
Box 9 Folder 315
[Dutch psychiatrist, aboutThe Church and the Black Man; letters from Thomas Merton; and Griffin's work on the Merton biography.
Box 9 Folder 316
[Thanking Griffin for a copy ofThe Church and the Black Man, which the Bishop calls an "open, frank and dynamic treatment of the weak points and the strong points of our apostolate to integrate the Black Man into the main stream of Catholic living is excellently presented and should be productive of good results."
Box 9 Folder 317
Box 9 Folder 318
[Regarding the use of Griffin's article, "The Racist Sins of Christians".
The Reader, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1968, was a 600 page cloth edition of Griffin's best work to that time; the collection sold 40,000 copies, but was never reissued in a paperback edition. The Reader included condensed versions of his two published novels--The Devil Rides Outside and Nuni; ample selections from two other published books--Land of the Hiqh Sky, a history of the staked plains region of west Texas, and Black Like Me. Three other sections completed the volume: a section of his photographic portraits, a gathering of journalistic pieces on racism, and a selection of "works-in-progress" that included two chapters from Scattered Shadows. The Reader was edited by Bradford Daniel, who also condensed the two novels and introduced each portion of the collection. The volume also contained an essay on Griffin's work by literary historian Maxwell Geismar, and several excerpts from Griffin's journals.. This series contains Griffin's correspondence with both Daniel and editors at Houghton Mifflin, and photocopies of the front matter to the book. There are no working manuscripts as everything was gathered from mostly published sources, and all selecting and editing were carried out by Daniel , who was Griffin's secretary at that time. (Copies of published reviews are included.. While The Reader was being readied for publication, Griffin was still lecturing on racism full-time, in order both to fulfill what he considered his obligation (under spiritual direction) to the civil rights struggle, and to support his wife and four children.. Besides the lecture circuit and writing magazine pieces on racism, Griffin worked on the manuscript of Scattered Shadows whenever possible.. Scattered Shadows, the autobiography of his loss of sight, decade of blindness, and eventual sight-recovery, has never been published as a book. The first 11 of 20 chapters were completed for Houghton Mifflin in 1967 and a contract was issued. However, Griffin never revised the last 9 chapters (which would have come from his ongoing journals) because the events of 1968 forced him back on the lecture circuit and also to the trouble spots of racial strife.. He never returned to the autobiography even after the explosions of 1968 had passed because; near the end of that year his friend and colleague, Thomas Merton, died of accidental electrocution in Bangkok (on December 10).. After negotiations with other publishers, Griffin and Houghton Mifflin agreed on a contract for the production of a photographic book (including Merton's photographs and drawings and Griffin's portraits of the monk and photographs of the Abbey of Gethsemani and its spacious grounds, along with texts by Griffin). The project eventually became A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton, published by Houghton 1970. Early on in the process of making this visual book, Griffin interacted with the three members of the Merton Legacy Trust. By spring of 1969, the Trust decided to offer the "Official Biography" to Griffin. At first, he declined; later, he accepted the invitation, hoping that this new large work would support his family and allow him to withdraw from the lecture circuit and write full-time. Considering how difficult lecturing had became due to various medical set-backs and resolving any guilt he might have felt for not continuing the civil rights struggle, he leaped into the project with enthusiasm.. Griffin hoped that Scattered Shadows would be published after the Merton biography--both by Houghton-Mifflin. However, researching the biography took several more years than he had anticipated--partly because the subject was so complex and far-reaching and partly due to his own declining health--and there was never time to return to the autobiography.. The two chapters that appear in The Reader were first published in Ramparts magazine. In fact, the chapters appeared twice in that Catholic periodical--first, in 1963, when Ramparts was a quarterly with limited circulation, and then again, in 1966, when it had become a widely-read monthly. A third chapter, entitled "My Friend, Reverdy" in The Reader, first appeared in Southwest Review, the SMU literary quarterly. Various other pieces from the manuscript were published in such Catholic magazines as Jubilee and Catholic World; and an account of his recovery of sight was published in Readers Digest and in the anthology The Spirit of Man.. This series contains a photocopy of the Ramparts chapters published in that magazine, as well as 20 file folders containing typescript carbons of the first 11 chapters from the unfinished manuscript. (Also six of Griffin's original file folders with typed labels made by the author.). These various chapter drafts afford glimpses of Griffin's manner of line by line revision and section by section reorganization--especially when compared to the few chapters that were published.
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[Incomplete missing pp. 43-47
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[Re.The Reader
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[Re.The Reader
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[Re.The Reader
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[Re.The Reader
This Series is the second largest in the Griffin Archives. It gathers all the correspondence, documents and marginalia. from that decade.
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[Re. the visit of Father Dominique Pire
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[Re. revision of the copyright law
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[Mother of James Chaney, the black civil rights worker murdered (with Schwerner and Goodman) in Mississippi.
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[Griffin considered Clyde Kennard to be one of the most courageous Christians he ever knew. Kennard was a Mississippi black man falsely accused of a petty crime because he tried to enter the state University, only to be given an outrageously stiff jail term at hard labor.
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[.Historian; author ofAntislavery, the history of lynching in the south; he was professor at the University of Michigan.
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[Author ofStrange Fruit,Killers of the Dream,One Hour. These are among the most profound letters Griffin. He had always been a fan of her novels--Strange Fruithad a deep effect on him which he discusses inBlack Like Me--and long wanted to meet her. They visited twice at her Georgia home. During those visits and in their very personal correspondence, they discovered an uncanny resonance and deep affection. Like Griffin, she was a musician, a Southern novelist, and had high regard for everything French. Griffin says in one of his letters to her that he felt as if Lillian Smith and John Howard Griffin were twins, even though she was nearly twenty years his senior. They came from the same background, discovered their own inculcated racism in similar ways, and fought courageously against prejudice, especially in the south. Both were ostracized for their public stand and for their controversial books, both fiction and non-fiction. Also, both were ill a great deal of their lives, and speak very personally about these afflictions. Some of the strongest passages by Smith are about her own work and about the work of Griffin. Her insights into her own method and her brilliant readings of Griffin's books are highly edifying to any serious reader or scholar.
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[In some of these long letters, Griffin reveals himself as he does nowhere else but his own journals; the discussions of her books show him to be, if not a brilliant critic, a passionately intelligent reader. Smith's books were among Griffin's favorite, and she was one of the very few contemporary writers he bothered to read (he rarely read contemporary fiction because he feared he would become unconsciously imitative of other styles). Aside from the many rich aspects of this correspondence, I discovered in Griffin's letters the most revealing discussions about his true motivations for the writing ofBlack Like Me. Also, his attitudes and fears about his own writing in general. He trusted Lillian Smith as a person and respected her writing so far above his own that he took her word as gospel as far as evaluating his writing (most of which he never reread once it was published).
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[Re. Lillian Smith
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[Re. Lillian Smith
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[Author ofThe Desegregated HeartandFor Humans Only; a Southerner like Lillian Smith and Griffin, she began their correspondence in 1963. Most of the letters from the 1960s, but she wrote him until 1978. Actually, her first correspondence to JHG was a postcard sent in November of 1962, thanking him for his review ofThe Desegregated Heartpublished inThe Saturday Review
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[East, editor ofThe Petal Paperand author ofThe Magnolia Jungle. Readers ofBlack Like Mewill remember P.D. East as the hilarious and courageous editor ofThe Petal Paper, a small Mississippi newspaper that began as part of the establishment and slowly turned into a radically satirical voice. This is without question the wackiest correspondence Griffin had with anyone. East's letters and postcards, except for a very few, are full of jokes and put-ons, even when he tells Griffin of his Mississippi miseries (which was nearly all the time!) Griffin's responses have his own brand of humor but do, in fact, carry some seriousness as well; they catalogue his involvement in the civil rights struggle during the 1960s -- ranging from anger and frustration to bawdy humor (whereas his letters to Lillian Smith reveal another aspect to Griffin's character -- more serious and thoughtful -- but all genuinely part of the man).
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[Editor of Harper's Magazine. This letter is an insightful critique of East's second attempt at a novel afterThe Magnolia Jungle,A Cock for Asclepius(it was never published).
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[No doubt Griffin wrote East through 1967 or 1968 but did not keep carbons. Many of these letters are meant to poke fun at East (one begins "Dear Genius" and another "Dear Judas") but more than half contain serious discourses on racism.
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[A parish priest who, at the time of his correspondence with Griffin, was the only black priest in Louisiana. Their dialogue, published first inRampartsand reprinted inThe John Howard Griffin Reader, also appeared in the Sheed & Ward anthology,Black, White and Gray, edited by Bradford Daniel. Most of the 1963 letters from both men discuss their dialogue and the difficulty of its being published because of resistance from Fr Thompson's Bishop. Eventually, it was published--in three separate publications mentioned above--and Fr Thompson went on to assist Griffin withThe Church and the Black Man, as an active member of the Black Priests Caucus.
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[Re.Black, White and Grey
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[Publisher ofRamparts, published many of Griffin's essays, photographs and the autobiography,Scattered Shadows(two chapters in 1963 and again in 1965). Griffin, who eventually became a Senior Editor ofRamparts, put Keating in touch with Thomas Merton, Jacques Maritain, Father August Thompson, Penn Jones ("The Strange Deaths After Dallas") and many other writers and photographers.
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[The Interview which ran in 1963, is one of the finest interviews with Griffin (and an opinion expressed by Griffin also). McDonnell was an excellent interviewer, who also interviewed Thomas Merton; he was, as well, the editor ofThe Thomas Merton Reader.
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[This essay was intended as a "Postscript" to Geismar's long essay on Griffin ("The Devil in Texas"--published inAmerican Moderns, Houghton Mifflin, 1959); it was the first major criticism of Griffin's work; both the long essay and the postscript were published together as the introduction toThe Griffin Reader.
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[Received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958 for his work in behalf of refugees and minority groups in the wake of World War II. He founded the University of Peace in Huy, Belgium and was the author of the collection,Building Peace, which featured Griffin's essay, "The Intrinsic Other".
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[A progressive Catholic priest and writer who, like his friends Thomas Merton, Jacques Maritain, and Griffin, was critical of the Church as a slow-moving institution with regards to race relations.
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[A convicted felon, Cleaver was released from prison partly upon the recommendation of Griffin that he was a talented writer. Cleaver went on to become one of the leaders of The Black Panthers and wroteSoul on Ice.
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[Eldridge Cleaver's attorney
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[Re Eldridge Cleaver's parole
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[Many signed by R.S. Pritchard, pianist-composer.
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[Re. Griffin's essay on Dr. Martin Luther King
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[Interview with Bradford Daniel
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[Re. racism in Los Angeles and the attitude of Cardinal McIntyre
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[The white woman who "became" a black woman and wrote about her experiences in her book wasSoul Sister. In these letters, as well as in her book, she cites Griffin as her inspiration for the project; she sought and received his counsel and support.
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[Photographer and friend of Berenice Abbott
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[With carbons by Griffin
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[Editor ofThe Basilian Teacher, re. the publication of the essay "The Men From the Boys," a piece about writing
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[Nelsova was a musician Griffin had long admired, and he made arrangements to take a portrait photograph of her
Catholic magazines; Correspondences with publishers concerning the use of his photographic portraits; Newspaper features and news stories on Griffin from the 1960s; Correspondences with magazine editors regarding published (as well as unpublished) articles--on racism--by Griffin; and much more miscellaneous business mail about his work.. This section includes more than 50 letters (original typescripts on various media stationery) to Griffin, as well as many of his responses (carbon typescripts). Because ofBlack Like Meand Griffin's extensive lecture tours speaking against racism, there was a tremendous spin-off of his work in the form of magazine articles, as well as many features about his work and life.
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[Polish conductor re. Chopin
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[Rossett, publisher of Grove Press, solicited Griffin's support on behalf of Henry Miller'sTropic of Cancer, which was cleared of the charge of pornography by the Supreme Court, on February 21, 1962; there is a carbon typescript of Griffin's reply of support, as well as related documents.
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[Re. Texans for America
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[Concerning the removal of1984, Steinbeck, and others from the library shelves.
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[Robert Ellis, whom Griffin considered one of the great modern American painters, shared a long personal friendship with the writer. The Ellises and the Griffins were inseparable friends for twenty years. Ellis died in 1979, the year before Griffin. Rosa Ellis manages a gallery in Taos, NM.. All these letters are from the early 1960s. According the Elizabeth Griffin, the correspondence from 1965-1979, on both sides, was accidentally destroyed.
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[Edward Steichen raved about inU.S. Camera(in 1939), was one of America's greatest photographers. Her magnificent books,The Bare Feet(about Mexican-peasants) andMother and Childare the most original, lyrical works we have. She worked without a light meter and with very simple cameras, learning photography by trial and error. In 1968, Griffin gave her a light meter, quite astonished that she had achieved such mastery of light without the instrument. Griffin considered Nell Dorr the supreme American photographer. He took many lovely portraits of her which have not been published.
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[Re. Jim Whitmore
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[Re. Jim Whitmore
The close friendship of Thomas Merton and John Howard Griffin is detailed by Griffin in his "Prologue" to Follow the Ecstasy; as well, there is a discussion of their affinities in Robert Bonazzi's "Foreword" to the Orbis Books edition of Follow the Ecstasy. The correspondence focuses on a wide range of subjects--race relations, the Vietnam War, major change in the Church under Pope John XXIII, and their mutual friendship with French philosopher Jacques Maritain, etc. The most discussed subject, however, turned out to be Merton's new-found passion for photography, which was greatly encouraged by Griffin (who gave the monk a good camera and processed his negatives).
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[Letter, dated November 9, 1968, is an Original Typescript on the letterhead of the Hotel Imperial in New Delhi. His last letter to Griffin was on the letterhead of The Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, dated December 7, 1968 (just three days before his death on Dec 10). Also, the envelope from that last letter, as well as a photographic packet Merton mailed from Thailand.
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[Dom James was Merton Is Abbot, with whom the monk had a long, personal, and sometimes confrontational relationship; also the Abbot who allowed Merton to live in a hermitage, beginning in 1965, as the first monk to become a hermit in the Cistercian Order since the Middle Ages
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[Re. the Abbot's permission for Griffin to photograph Merton in 1963 and discussion of the Fox-Merton relationship after the monk's death; out of Griffin's 1963 photo session with the monk came the 'Official Portrait'
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[Brother Hart was Merton's secretary in 1968; he has become the most knowledgeable Merton scholar today, publishing several anthologies by or about Merton, as well as being the General Editor for the Merton Journals (withheld from the public for 25 years after the monk's death; the first volumes will be published in 1994).
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[A monk at Gethsemani for many years,. was a close friend of Merton's. He is a licensed psychiatrist, one of the most influential Merton scholars, and has become an Abbot. These-letters, as well as several deeply insightful articles about Merton, probe the psyche of the famous monk..; Father Bamberger counseled Merton-. during some of the monk's critical psychological periods of adjustment
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[Mostly regarding their relationships with Merton, as part of Griffin's research for the Official Biography of Thomas Merton
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[Griffin's agent in London
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[Legal Counsel for the Trust, and one typescript carbon reply from Griffin; this correspondence details, among other issues, the Trust's demand that Griffin complete the Official Biography of Merton. or relinquish his control of the project (which he did in 1977)
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[Reprinted as the "Epilogue" toFollow the Ecstasy
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[ Merton's aunt on father's side, New Zealand
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[His uncle on mother's side, New York
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[Close family friend to his aunts in New Zealand.
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[Merton, Vicar in New Zealand.
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[Re. Merton's brother, John-Paul, who died in WW II
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[Accompanied by a t.l.s. from John L. Barber to griffin re. Merton at Ockham-Cambridge
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[Directed Merton to the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1940
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[Pulitzer Prize poet, novelist and critic, who was one of Merton's teachers at Columbia, remaining a life-long friend. Van Doren had Merton's early poetry manuscripts and he edited and introduced Merton's Selected-Poems
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[Nicaragua's Minister of Culture, who was a novice under Merton at Gethsemani; a widely-published poet in Spanish and English, wrote long poem for Merton published by New Directions
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[A friend of Thomas Merton who wrote the only full-length study of the his poetry, Words and Silence
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[Radical Jesuit and old friend of Merton. All of the notes are written on photocopies of his poems and essays.
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[Close associate of Berrigan's, and winner of the Christian Culture Award
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[The famed-pianist, who owned Victor Hammer's famous drawing of Merton and donated the work to the Merton Studies Center
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[Professor at Berea College, KY, who published Merton's work inKattalagemagazine
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[Director of The Committee of Southern Churchmen, and a colleague of Holloway (both visited Merton several times)
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[John Jacob Niles was the composer who set Merton's poems to music forThe Niles-Merton Song Cycle
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[A novice under Merton.
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[A novice under Merton.
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[Philosopher, who introduced Merton's last book,Asian Journal
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[Secretary to the Dalai Lama, whom Merton visited for thee days
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[Editor of America magazine, who investigated the death of Merton in Asia
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[The first person to reach Merton after the monk's accidental death by electrocution in Bangkok; he also took the important photos of the 'death scene'--both Moffitt and Father Say made very significant contributions to the truth of Merton's death (in these letters)]
Negative strip has been removed from this file and is stored separately; see entry for Negatives (Photographs) immediately following this entry in the container list.
Box 46
If you wish to access this item, please contact the Library in advance of your visit. Access will be provided to a digital copy of the images on a closed computer in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's reading room.
Single copies may be requested for research purposes. Any patron requesting copies must sign a fair use statement, and acknowledge that the copies are for private study only, and not for publication in any form. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron. These images may not be published in any form without the permission of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani.
This negative strip includes two images of Merton's death scene taken by Father Celestine Say. This item was originally filed with related correspondence in Box 14 Folder 511. See Also: Box 14 Folder 511.
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[His father was an important teacher in Merton's fascination for Zen
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[Attended the Bangkok conference with Merton
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[Re. photographs and Niles-Merton concerto
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A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Mertonwas published by Houghton Mifflin, in cloth and paperback-large-format editions, in 1970. An inferior cloth edition was later published by Norman Berg in 1977. The working title for the book wasThe Visual Merton, as cited in the correspondence between Griffin and publishers, as well as his correspondence with the Members of The Merton Legacy Trust. The book consists of a short text by Griffin, his photographs of Merton and the surrounding environment, and Merton's own photographs and paintings (which he called "calligraphs" or "signatures"--abstract miniatures suggesting the influences of Franz Kline, Paul Klee, and Zen calligraphy). Griffin was appointed "Official Biographer" in 1969; he worked on the "Official Biography" from 1969 until 1977.
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[Accompanied by a t.l. (carbon) to his editor and a carbon list of photographs
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Published by Latitudes Press in 1983 in a quality paperback edition with slip-cover dust jacket. Three paperback editions (without dust jacket) followed under the Latitudes imprint. This edition was edited by Robert Bonazzi, who also wrote the Preface. A Revised edition was published by Orbis Books in 1993. This paperback includes a 16 page glossy folio of Griffin photographs and a new Foreword by the editor. The Orbis edition is entitled:Follow the Ecstasy: The Hemitage Years of Thomas Merton.. [It is important to note here thatFollow the Ecstasyrepresents only a portion of Griffin's proposed "Official Biography of Thomas Merton". The official biography was never completed. The full story, including the genesis ofFollow the Ecstasythat emerged from the unfinished biography, is documented in Robert Bonazzi's "Foreword" to the Orbis Books revised edition.]. This Series includes all of Griffin's working drafts from the unfinished "Official Biography of Thomas Merton"
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[With 1 page of notes by Robert Bonazzi.
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[This Chapter was never published; only a few have seen final draft
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[This recounts Merton's 1956 meeting with psychiatrist Gregory Zilborg, in Minnesota; this Controversial meeting of Or. Zilborg and Merton has been discussed in print by several biographers and Father John Eudes Bamberger, who actually attended the meeting. However, Griffin's chapter was never published, and only a few have seen the final draft; the drafts
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Jacques Maritain, author of thirty books of philosophy and theology, was one of the most important Catholic writers of the 20th Century. He and his wife, the poet Raissa Maritain, are remembered in more than a dozen biographies, as well as in her popular memoirs--in particular, We Were Friends Together, which tells the story of the famous French circle that gathered around the Maritains in the 1930s and 1940s in Paris. They were in close consort with the many great artists of that period, including Picasso, Braque, Reverdy, the philosophers Gilson and Pegeuy, the composer Lourie, American painter Abraham Rattner, and many others. The Maritains were converted to Catholicism by the radical philosopher Leon Bloy during their student days. Maritain, known principally for his work on St. Thomas Aquinas, was considered the ultimate Thomist in modern times. He had great influence over Thomas Merton and John Howard Griffin--also Catholic converts--who considered the French philosopher to be their friend and mentor. Griffin, in particular, saw Maritain as his ultimate mentor and spiritual guide.
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[Translated from the French by Griffin; the piece was published, with Griffin's photographs, inLatitudesmagazine
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[dictated by Maritain to various secretaries
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[Fumet was a leading French literary critic and close friend of the Maritains and Reverdy
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[Friend and biographer of Maritain, who was the Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at Notre Dame concerning Maritain and Griffin work
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[Director of the International Jacques Maritain Institute in Rome
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[With Griffin's replies (carbon typescripts);
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[With Griffin's replies (carbon typescripts)
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[Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, thanking Griffin for sending "a magnificent photograph of Jacques Maritain". Dr. Adler and Maritain were friends and philosophy colleagues
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[Thanking him for permission to print one of his portraits of Maritain in their Great Ideas Today series
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[With Griffin reply, concerning Maritain portraits for cover of the philosopher's Challenges and Renewals; and also their interest in publishing a book of Merton portraits by Griffin; the Maritain book was published but the Merton book (by World) was not
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[Editor of Jubilee magazine, at that time (1967) having been-taken over by Herder--and Herder Publishing; many of Griffin's portraits of Maritain, including one for the issue's cover, were published in Jubilee's homage to the philosopher, January 1968; the letters from Lawler are original typescripts; also photocopy of Jubilee
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[Requesting the use of one portrait to be published in Dunaway'sExiles and Fugitivesby LSU Press; also a second letter requesting that the same photograph of Maritain be printed in the LSU Press catalogue (1992)
Gwen John, sister of Augustus John, was little known during her lifetime. After her death, her meticulous paintings--especially portraits--became highly regarded. As a friend of the Maritains, she left with them several paintings as gifts (watercolors and gouaches), as well as drawings.
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[Owner of Kolbsheim, the Grunelius Estate which provided space to artists at no cost, allowing a quiet and elegant setting for artistic retreats. The Maritains and Griffin made many trips there.
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[Art critic who was the curator for the Gwen John exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London
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For an in-depth discussion of the controversial ideas in Jacques Maritain's last book, a reading of the Griffin interview with Maritain is illuminating. However, there is a story behind the book's publication in America, and this story behind the story is revealed in the correspondences that follow. This short morality play features a French publisher, several American publishers, a French literary agent based in Manhattan, a translator, concerned friends like Thomas Merton and John Howard Griffin, and the elderly layman who called himself "the peasant of Garonne" (Jacques Maritain). Georges Borchardt, a literary agent for the Paris publishing house, Declee de Brouwer (which published the original edition ofPeasant) offered both the Maritain book and French edition of Raissa Maritain'sJournalto Charles Scribner's Sons of New York. The legendary Scribner, a long-time friend of the Maritains and the publisher of many of the philosopher's books in English, was interested inPeasantbut not the poetic reflections of Raissa's Journal. Displeased with Scribner and Borchardt, Maritain wrote the publisher to say that either both books would be published by his old publisher or neither would be published under his imprint. And he turned the proceedings over to his friend, John Howard Griffin, who agreed to find an appropriate American publisher for both books, as well as translators.. However, as Griffin made contacts with publishers--and had interest from Arabel Porter at New American Library and Ralph Manheim at Harcourt--Borchardt was contacting other New York publishers with the encouragement of the original French publisher, Deciee de Brouwer. Borchardt managed to interest Joseph Cunneen, the religious editor at Holt, Rinehart and Winston, inPeasant, reaching preliminary agreement on a contract. When Maritain hear of this from Cunneen, he wrote to say that he was not against Holt publishing his book, but insisted that Griffin and not Borchardt handle the negotiations (as well as choose the translator). At the same time, Borchardt wrote Griffin to say that he had came to terms with Holt on behalf of Declee de Brouwer. Griffin, in an agony of embarrassment because this was exactly the sort of tension he wanted to avoid for Maritain, was forced to alert NAL and Harcourt of the mess, as well as correspond with Holt to make certain that the contract did not violate Maritain's wishes.. Finally, after several rounds of letters, the issue was clarified.. Holt would publishPeasant, Borchardt would be the link between Holt and Declee de Brouwer, and Griffin would select the translator. In the shuffle, there was no mention of Raissals Journal, so Griffin went elsewhere with that project, eventually landing it with Magi Books several years later. Michael Cuddihy was chosen to translate with the understanding that his English version would be examined by Griffin, Thomas Merton, and Joseph Evans of the Maritain society -- all trusted Maritain friends and translators (from French) in their own right.. All the preceding took place from November 1966 until the spring of 1967. At that point, a complete retyping of the Cuddihy translation had to be made at Holt, and Maritain became concerned about the slow progress. For some of the others there was a greater problem: No one was very impressed with the translation. So, after making changes suggested by Merton and Evans, Griffin took the translation to France, spending several weeks working it over with Maritain, who was not impressed with Cuddihy's work either. The accepted translation was dispatch by Maritain to Griffin's hands and then on to Joseph Cunneen at Holt, who made the point that not only had Cuddihy improved his work as he went along (and that his work had been further improved by Merton and Griffin especially), but that he was not pleased with Maritain's low opinion of the translation or with the philosopher's changes which he felt were neither "that extensive nor that helpful". When all the smoke of ego had cleared, the book was published by Holt with a portrait of Maritain (by Griffin) on its dust jacket. It sold well and went into a paperback-reprint by MacMillan (again with Griffin's portrait as the cover). Extensive detail is revealed by the actual documents
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[In English
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[Also two original typescript letters from Borchardt to Griffin; both men sadly lamenting the confusion and pleading innocence (although it was Borchardt who, in fact, caused all the confusion)
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[With JHG carbon reply
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A 64-page large format book of photographs and texts, published by Magi Books in 1974. This is the same Albany, NY publisher who brought out Raissa'sJournaland also Maritain'sNotebooks. All three of these books are still in print. TheHomaqeconsists of an essay on Maritain by philosopher Yves Simon; this one of many written by a close friend and colleague, who illuminates Maritain's ideas and personality for the general reader. The second part of this "homage in words" is by John Howard Griffin, excerpts from journals kept while visiting with Martain in Princeton (1962), Fort Worth and Gethsemani (1966), Kolbsheim (1967) and Toulouse (1970).. The book ends with Griffin's 1973 entry about the last days of the philosopher. The book opens with a Foreword by Anthony Simon, son of Yves Simon, that reflects on the friendship of his father and Maritain. The magnificent photos throughout the book are by Griffin
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[Composed from several entries in his journals; comparing these dated entries with the original versions (of the same dates) suggests some polishing but not massive revision
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[Publisher; these discuss developing ideas about the book's text, format, photographs, followed by plans for promotion
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[Also a photocopy of Maritain letter to Simon; and Maritain Symposium materials from the American Maritain Assoc. of which Simon is secretary
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[In one of these Griffin discusses his time in the French Underground and how Yves Simon understood the degree of French collaboration with the Nazis which was not realized by those at ground zero (see Simon's book about the Vichy conspiracy). (Plus review-essays and short newspaper reviews)
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Commissioned by MacMillan as a book on racism for young adults, A Time To Be Human was published in 1977. It was Griffin's last book about racism (and human rights issues), as well as a summation of all his work in this area:. With Black Like Me and The Church and the Black Man it forms a remarkable trilogy. The text reprises the Black Like Me experience with different anecdotes and a re-evaluation of the 1960s; and it draws on many of his Sepia articles from the 1970s, as well as updated materials. Begun as a tape recording, Griffin worked up the published book through three manuscript drafts, giving the scholar a rare overview of his method.. The series includes Griffin's Original Typescript of the First Draft, a 73 page manuscript, with the author's corrections. Major changes can be studied in Griffin's Second Draft, also the Original Typescript, which runs to 71 manuscript pages. Finally, there is the 75 page manuscript of the Final Draft (a photocopy), including both the author's and the editor's changes. The Editor in this instance was David Reuther of MacMillan, who had made Griffin's acquaintance through correspondence regarding another MacMillan publication for young adults--the Cornelia and Irving Sussman biography of Thomas Merton. Griffin provided the cover photographs for the Merton biography, as well as advice to its authors, the husband and wife team who were his close friends (see their correspondence in Series VII)
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[With Griffin's carbon replies
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During his last decade, Griffin concentrated most of his energies on the research and writing of the official Biography of Thomas Merton--a project he relinquished to a second biographer (Michael Mott) in 1977. In order to support his family, he also became an editor for Sepia, the monthly magazine which had serialized his "Journey into Shame" articles which eventually became Black Like Me. Also, he lectured at universities on the theme of racism, but he spoke about Thomas Merton's spirituality as well. He traveled increasingly to Toronto, where he developed a huge Catholic student following, lecturing in Canada more often than in the States. By 1976, he experienced a serious decline in health, with complications that eventually ended his hope of completing the Merton biography. But from 1969-1972, he was. in reasonably good health, and completed most of the Merton research in a series of retreats at the monk's hermitage on the grounds of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Series XIII and XIV cover that period and document the Merton connection. Series XVIII is the journal he kept at Gethsemani, a book he worked on in 1979 and 1980, the year he died.. Even though he worked most diligently on the Merton materials until 1977, he did manage to write and publish a wide variety of shorter pieces and complete an immense number of photographic works.
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[With Griffin's carbon and photocopy of article on Merton's friendship
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[Became a Latitudes Press chapbook in 1985. This was the only piece of fiction Griffin wrote after the 1950s, except for time spent on revising earlier unpublished novels (during the 196Os). With related correspondence from Renaissance Publications Co, Inc., 1973.
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[One of Griffin's very finest essays, written from an objective point of view that masks his deeply personal involvement with physical pain, its levels of consciousness and possible adaptations to spiritual awakening; from the pages ofCreative Sufferingan- Anthology by Pilgrim Press, 1970
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[A personal essay that discusses the handful of books which "have the capacity to transform one's life"--that is, books in Griffin's experience as a reader. Several books are discussed, but his focus is on the autobiography of the photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn. It was written forWaymagazine and published in a series
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[Autobiographical anecdote about spending the night in Paris under a stairwell as a teenager which spins into some tips about turning experience into writing; one of only two Griffin pieces on the art of writing. From the anthologyHandbook of Short Story Writing, published by The Writer's Digest in 1973
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[An editorial on page 2, 3, 16 of the Belgian periodical "From Heart to Heart" published by the Dominique Pire Foundation
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[Published inThe New York Times Book Reviewin 1975; Griffin was blind for a decade
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[An article about FBI interference with Dr. Martin Luther King and other black leaders; with a copy ofThe Continuing Inquiryin which it was published.
Sepia, originally based in Fort Worth, moved to Chicago in the 1970s
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[Article about clinics for the poor, run by the poor; published with Griffin photographs
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[Article about Joe Moore, black Alabama businessman; published with JHG photos
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[Excellent piece of Black History about little-known sea captain and philanthropist
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[Article on Governor Wallace that suggests that the Alabama icon's image had been changed by a new press kit, in 1974, but black citizens of Alabama were skeptical.
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[With an autograph letter from Glover to Griffin
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[Article about the Klan's murder of Vernon Dahmer a leader in the Hattiesburg black community
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[Concerning later developments in the story
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[Griffin's last interview published in U.S. Catholic; contains insights on pain, dying, and spirituality; one of his best interviews
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[Old Merton friend and founder of Madonna House in Ontario, Canada; plus one carbon typescript response from Griffin
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[Texas writer and regular contributor toThe Texas Observer, concerning the Observer's sending of 500 copies ofBlack Like Meto Texas colleges
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[With t.l. (carbon) response from Griffin
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[About her novel
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[Poet, who was a colleague of Griffin's at the Upper Midwest Writing Conference [This experience was rare for Griffin, who did not "teach writing" on a professional basis.]
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[Nobel Prize Laureate who invented the junction transmitter used in heart pacemakers, concerning his contention that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. In response to Griffin's July 1974 article in Sepia: "How White Intellectuals Become Racists", Dr. Shockley, surprised at Griffin's objectivity in the piece, nonetheless disagreed vigorously with Griffin's findings.
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[A black psychologist
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[About an article following a Griffin lecture there
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[President of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio Regarding working with Griffin in a study of the effects of racism on the Hispanic community
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[Regarding photographs in their travel section
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[Concerning the airing of Griffin writings. The letters are in French
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Joe Noonan, staff cartoonist forWAYMagazine, first wrote to Griffin in 1971. Soon the two men were corresponding so regularly--and ultimately much more voluminously than Griffin corresponded with anyone in. his lifetime--that the file of Noonan letters to Griffin numbers 1,592 pieces. This is staggering when one considers that this computes to one letter every other day arriving in Griffin's mailbox for nine years (from 1971 until 1980). The pieces vary from postcards and notes to hundreds of single-spaced typed letters (totaling ever 3,000 pages). Noonan was an extremely clever cartoonist and nearly 800 of the 948 envelopes are decorated with his witty cartoons (and nearly all of these take-offs on the ongoing correspondence). Cartoons decorate the letters also; there are an estimated 4,000 original cartoons in the file.. While the accent of the correspondence is one of humor (subtle, bawd , satiric, absurd, and downright silly at times), there are also many Noonan letters that evoke seriousness--discussions of literature, politics, religion and society. Noonan's letters, however, are most notable for their wide range of humor--not only cartoons, but hundreds of loony news items and photographs that were often altered with the cartoonist's sharp pen. Noonan's primary motive was to keep a beleaguered and often very ill author cheered up, laughing, and several steps away from taking it all too seriously. Griffin loved his letters (and envelopes) and perhaps nothing else cheered him so jubilantly in his last years, (1977-1980) especially.. The little we know of Griffin's side of the correspondence (a safe estimate would be about 1,200 letters which are in Noonan's possession) is what is reflected in the Noonan letters. Also, we have an excellent article about the correspondence written by the cartoonist after Griffin's death, and published in a special issue ofWaymagazine exclusively dedicated to various aspects of the author.
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Subtitled A Diary Kept While Working on the Biography of Thomas Merton, this 231 page published book charts Griffin's 18 visits to Merton's hermitage, from August 5, 1969 through June 15, 1972 (plus three other entries made at his home in Fort Worth, Texas). The edition includes a short preface by Griffin--his last piece of writing composed for publication--and a folio of his photographs of the hermitage and its surroundings. The cloth edition was published by Andrews and McMeel in 1981, the year after Griffin's death; a paperback version appeared a few years later under Doubleday's Image imprint.. Like Black Like Me, this book is a diary set apart from Griffin's ongoing Journal (1950-1980), and was intended as a self-contained work for publication. The scholar will not find either text in the overall pagination of the Journal, even though there are other entries for the years (in which these two books were composed) in that larger 3,000 page compendium. Nonetheless, if one were to read the two published diaries and the Journal chronologically, the overall story of Griffin's life-line continues uninterrupted from 1950 to 1980.. In the case of The Hermitage Journals, the text was first drafted as a diary from 1969-1972. That draft was edited and a second draft was made in 1978-1979 by Griffin in collaboration with Father Tom McKillop, the author's close friend and spiritual guide during the last three years of life. That second draft was edited by Conger Beasley for the cloth edition. But because both Father McKillop and Griffin's widow, Elizabeth, did not favor all the deletions Beasley had made from the second draft, yet a fourth and final draft was agreed upon for cloth publication.. The Hermitage Journals, then, was the last book Griffin prepared for publication under contract, although it appeared posthumously.
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[Publisher of Andrews and McMeel. The first letter asks Griffin if he has any current projects in the works (1976); the second letter, dated April 30, 1980, is Andrews' response to a reading of Griffin's hermitage diary--he was so impressed with the manuscript that he offered to publish it and looked forward to actually editing it as well; the third letter acknowledges Griffin's return of the signed contract. [Unfortunately, Griffin and Andrews were not able to work together on the book. Both died before the book was read for production.]
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[Vice President of Andrews and McMeel, concerning among other issues, restoring some cuts made by the editor Beasley; also a list of the cuts that were restored
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[Discussing the editing of the manuscript
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[When one considersThe Hermitage Journalsin connection withBlack Like MeandScatttered Shadows, there emerges a fascinating subject for scholarship. These books form an autobiographical trilogy that is unique in subject matter and intensely original in the evocation of these experiences. How many whites have experienced being black? How many social creatures have embraced hermetic solitude? How many have lost their eyesight, endured a decade of blindness and then had vision restored? Surely, these singular realities are among the most misunderstood and nowhere in our literature are they made so understandable from the inside out. Griffin found such human conditions, however contradictory on the surface, profoundly unified in the realm of the spirit. He discovered that being blind or black or being a hermit simply meant being human--that the experience itself was far less difficult and painful than the dehumanizing perceptions of those in the majority, who did not see the individual but only that condition of appearing other than average
"In my teens, when I was a student at the Lycéee Descartes, in Tours, France," wrote Griffin in the unpublished preface to his Journal, "a man I greatly admired suggested that I begin keeping a journal of my life. He said it was one way of learning to know myself provided I let no one else see it, wrote it honestly and wrote in it even when I felt I had nothing to say.". From the age of sixteen until he was twenty-one, Griffin continued his journal; but when France was about to fall to the Germans, he gave the autograph journals to a schoolmate for safe-keeping, and returned to the states. "Years later when I returned to France [in 19761, I retrieved the journal which had been buried on my friend's father's farm during the war." He began to read his reflections. "It was a sickening experience. Pages were filled with literary analyses, musical analyses, foods we ate, with scarcely a word about the supreme reality of the war which preoccupied us day and night. It was pure escape from that reality rather than any attempt to handle it. I was heartsick to find myself so false.... I burned those pages and did not resume [a journal] until some years later when I was blind and had learned to use the typewriter.". Curiously, it was again on the advice of a man he admired--the theatre critic John Mason Brown--that Griffin began to write. But it was not a journal; it was his first novel, The Devil Rides Outside, written in 1949. His mature Journal was launched in December of 1950, during the third year of sightlessness. When.he was not working on novels or short stories, he poured impressions into the Journal, which became a seedbed for most of work he would publish later. We find in its pages fragments and drafts of stories and novels; essays and articles; voluminous meditations on ethics, religion and philosophy; responses to the music he listened to constantly; discussions of cooking, farming and family relationships; insights into the realities of blindness and how the condition is wrongly perceived by the sighted; speculations on psychology, sociology, anthropology and the arts in relation to the diminishment of culture in America. We hear every tone of voice from the compassionate to the dismissive; styles that range from lyric to polemic, from the scholarly to the absurd. At times he was naive and narrowly opinionated; at other times, measured and wise. He reflected on literature and life--the books he had read (and those which were read to him or recorded on tapes) and all the places he had traveled and lived. He was always a bit nostalgic for the high culture of France and the great joy of learning he had discovered in that adopted land; nostalgic also for the year he spent on a remote island in the South Seas living among the native inhabitants. Conversely, he had been horrified by war--both what he had witnessed working in the French Underground and the devastation of combat while in the Air Force in the Pacific.. Reading the Journal one is always aware that it is an intensely human document--full of contradictions and paradoxes; hope and despair; criticism of the world and self-criticism; fear and anguish over what often did not matter, as well as heroism in the face of what mattered most. The writing is, by turns, elegant and crude; often brilliant and sometimes ignorant; and splattered with passages that roar with comic hyperbole or soar with a spiritual clarity. But always one reads as if one has discovered a secret document; that one is looking over the shoulder of a man who is truely alive in the immense process of becoming a genuine artist and thinker. And later we meet the justly famous author who has absorbed the profound wisdom of humility.. This massive Journal runs to 2,762 pages of single-spaced typed pages. This page count does not include ten autograph notebooks he kept away from the typewriter nor the published books (previously mentioned) that were pulled out of the overall Journal and composed into separate books.. During the period of his blindness--recorded in the Journal from December of 1950 until sight-recovery in January of 1957--he typed almost 900 pages in a span of just slightly more than six years. That is roughly 150 pages each year. Yet, the count for 1951, the first full year of keeping the Journal, is 231 pages (the third highest volume for any year). This was a period of intense introspection for Griffin, he was in the process of making what the French call "the great yes" or the leap of faith from indecision to belief; Griffin became a convert to Catholicism in 1952.. In 1954 we find the second most voluminous year with 255 pages. That year, he was suffering not only from the complications of blindness and diabetes, but he had contracted spinal malaria--a condition which paralyzed him from the waist down and confined him to a wheelchair. All he could do was sit at the typewriter, listen to music, and write.. The entries of 1954 record a very real agony and ecstasy. Griffin experienced the most alienating depths of despair alternating with some of the greatest spiritual heights of his life. Without the love and understanding of his young wife (Elizabeth Holland and Griffin married in 1953), as well as his parents and also her parents--and with absolute faith in God--he would not have survived the ordeal. Instead he wrote about everything that year and drafted over 400 pages of Nuni, his second novel.. In the decade of blindness--from 1947 to early 1957--Griffin composed five novels (two were published, two remain unpublished and the fifth was lost); over sixty short stories (most unpublished); a short book on blindness (Handbook For Darkness); music lectures and articles; and nearly a thousand pages in the Journal . Virtually all of his fiction--literally thousands of pages--were written during the decade of sightlessness. Except for revisions of earlier novels in draft and one short piece of humor ("Pilgrimage"), his career as a fiction writer was over when he regained his sight.. During the 1960s he managed to average over100 pages per year in the Journal, including the second highest page count (248) in 1966. In general, however, these entries move away from introspection toward the concerns of a public life--a-decade which found him away from the studio and his expanding family and in a world of turmoil. His writings were much shorter and their focus was temporal not eternal. He published polemical and journalistic articles on racism, injustice, war, censorship, politics, and lectured extensively on these same issues (and, of course, specifically- on his experiences in Black Like Me, its aftermath, and the civil rights battles that followed. He wrote brilliantly and courageously, and his lectures and writings were in great demand. But the public life took its toll on the books he was forced to leave unfinished (novels as well as Scattered Shadows), and what limited private time that remained was spent with his family and friends and in the darkroom (where his photographic career blossomed), but not in the writing studio. Those years also took their toll on his fragile health. He was no longer blind and the paralysis had lasted only one year, but the stress of his schedule far from solitude increased the debilitating effects of his diabetic condition. He experienced blackouts and exhaustion. His Journal records all this activity in a cryptic rather than expansive manner.. With his appointment as the Official Biographer of Thomas Merton, illness turned toward relative health, exhaustion was replaced by energy, and Griffin once again found spiritual joy in solitude and a fascinating long-range project. The Journal, from 1970-1980 runs about 650 pages--about 65 pages as an annual average with only 1975 accumulating more than 200 pages. This drop in production was a result of the work on the biography and that includes The Hermitage Journals factored out of the equation, as well as a tremendous amounts of photographic work--choices that Griffin was pleased to make, of course. But other factors--not of his choosing--also impacted upon the Journal. There was a significant decline in his health (this is why the entries are more than three times the volume of 1970-1974; he was confined and unable to travel to Gethsemani and Europe where so much research had been accomplished); and there was also the countless intrusions of the curious making pilgrimages to his door.. The Autograph Notebooks, which Griffin considered part of his overall Journal, are from widely different time-frames. Written in spiral notebooks or bound composition books that Griffin carried on his travels when having a typewriter was impossible or inconvenient; these generally reflect a specific event or span of days that can be integrated by dated passage into the overall scheme of his personal Journal.
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[Records Griffin's first face to face visit with his mentor, Jacques Maritain, then at Princeton University (October 1962). An augmented discussion of this visit appears inHomage in Words and Pictures. A visit made in March of 1962 to Assumption Univesity in Windsor, Ontario follows; there he had dialogue with Father Stanley Murphy, founder of the Christian Culture Series, and Eugene McNamara, the Canadian literary critic who had written enthusiastically about Griffin's two novels. The third excerpt is about Griffin's first face to face meeting with Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani. There is much more about this and other meetings with Merton inA Hidden WholenessandFollow the Ecstasy. [These handwritten first impressions of two of the thinkers he most admired--Maritain and Merton--give this notebook its rare quality.]
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[Records Griffin's photographic experience of the ritual passion performed by the Tarascan culture in the state of Michoacan, Mexico; these are early notes for his published article, "Passion at Tzintzuntzan" (The Griffin Reader). A second section records several pages of notes about Martin Luther King that are the genesis for his piece "Martin Luther King's Moment" (first published inSignmagazine, then anthologized). The third section is a sketch of Gregory Griffin, the author's son, who, at age four began doing photography under his father's tutelage. Gregory published many of his black and white pictures of animals in major photographic journals, beginning at age five up into his teens; he was the youngest member of ASMP (American Society of Magazine Photographers) in the history of that organization--although ASMP did not know the boy was only five at the time, and Griffin kept his age secret for many years after.
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[A Calendar of Lectures for 1966, running, through May of that year. It provides one a taste of the range of places and settings (as well as fees) Griffin encountered. And there are also notations for some New York visits he had scheduled--with the legendary blues musician Josh White for a photographic session and with his close friend the literary critic Maxwell Geismar.
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[Griffin carried along this notebook on his lecture tour to California in February and on to Michigan in March of 1967. His stay in San Francisco includes some somber reflections on visiting an "adults only" bookshop. The end of his circuit in Michigan elicits great relief to be returning home to his wife and children. [A batch of pages was cut from the front of this notebook by Griffin; perhaps these had been unsatisfactory pages of writing or an early draft of a piece later developed on the typewriter.]
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[This 1970 notebook accompanied Griffin on one of his most significant trips to Europe, researching for his biography of Thomas Merton. His seventeen year old daughter, Susan, accompanied him on the journey. The first stop was Amsterdam, on January 27, 1970, pronouncing himself "more at home here than anywhere in the states." It was a city that his close friend, pianist Robert Casadesus often performed, especially at the Concertgebow, where Griffin attended an all-Beethoven concert by pianist Annie Fischer. He took the opportunity to photograph this great musician in performance, and visited with her afterward... pronounced the recital "a real glory--one of the finest concerts I ever heard. Like Lipatti and Schnabel combined". The next morning he visited the Rijks Museum, "seeing the Rembrandts, Vermeers, etc. Tremendous. To the Van Gogh Museum this afternoon." After three days in Amsterdam, he spent three days in Brussels, staying with the psychiatrist and Merton enthusiast Dr. Vander-Elst. On February 2nd, he took the train to Strasbourg and was met by his old friends, Antoinette and Alexander Grunelius. These great friends of the Maritains drove Griffin and his daughter to their Chateau at Kolbsheim (the repository of the papers of Jacques and Raissa Maritain), where they stayed a few days.. Griffin then spent five days with Jacques Maritain in Toulouse, where the 87 year old philosopher had a tiny hermitage on the grounds where the motherhouse of the Little Brothers and Sisters Order is located. Many passaqes here about Maritain, several of the sisters who did his secretarial work (Sister Marie Pascale, in particular, who typed the philosopher's manuscripts and letters--her signature is under many of Maritain's letters on file at HRC), as well as several interesting cooking experiences with Sister Marie Emmanuel.. A week later, Griffin made several trips to Prades (Merton's birthplace), Montaubin and St. Antonin (where Merton lived as a child), and on to Paris, photographing and notetaking all the way. On February 14, he visited with the daughter of Leon Bloy, the French writer and thinker who was instrumental in converting the Maritains to Catholicism, after a search of several days. Part of this experience, though not mentioned in this notebook, laid the groundwork for his last piece of fiction--the humorous take-off upon hearing the sweet sound of a sackbutt (Pilgrimage, Latitudes Press, 1985).
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[Lecture notes for a series on "Dominant Institutions" given during a two-week period at Loretto Heights University in Denver, Colorado. Griffin went to Loretto Heights for two weeks every year during the 1970s to lecture, teach classes and conduct seminars on various aspects of society: racism, injustice, freedom, spirituality--and how the person is thus affected by these realities. In this comfortable academic setting, he was able to develop a deeper set of ideas than one three hour lecture at a university or church could provide--especially when he was in another city by the next day. He enjoyed these times at Loretto Heights, a Catholic institution known for its progressive system which was influenced by Sister Mary Luke Tobin, a close associate of both Merton and Griffin over the years. He utilized this annual visit to Denver to develop his ongoing lectures more deeply, benefitting from the learned response of some of the faculty, as well as a pool of intelligent Catholic students, including many from foreign countries. His daughter Susan was a student at Loretto Heights and her tuition was given in exchange for Griffin's annual appearances.. The lecture notes themselves will give the scholar a clear idea of the way in which Griffin built up the background for his lectures--scholarly research to give context to speeches that were always based on personal experience and more often than not about hisBlack Like Meand subsequent civil rights work.. Here the background is separated out from the foreground; the objective set apart from the subjective while his speeches integrate both realms.
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[Records two days of solitude at Bemidji, Minnesota on a lake surrounded by woods. He was at the time teaching writing at The Upper Midwest Writing Conference [see Series XVII for related information and correspondence]. Griffin simply records the solitary time and does not mention the conference at all. He records the birdcalls, describes the lake and woods, remarks about being awake at dawn--and then compares his sense of unity there as reminiscent of his time at Merton's hermitage four years earlier, July 1976.. The second section finds Griffin recuperating from several heart attacks after a month long tour from October 20 to November 20 (mostly in Canada). That tour ended in Rochester, New York where he was barely able to make his appearance. Returning to Fort Worth, he kept his Journal in this notebook on a bed desk his wife had purchased, because he was unable to work on his studio typewriter. Very ill, he convinced the doctor to let him remain at home instead of going to the hospital. Slowly, he begins to improve in the warm context of his family--wife and younger daughter (Amanda), as well as his mother (Lena Griffin), all helping and staying watch. Each day he received communion from his close friend, Father George Curtsinger (photographer, pianist, writer; books published by Latitudes). November 27 to December 3, 1976.
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[The first section includes Griffin's extensive notes on writing and art in outline form and is clearly influenced by Maritain's aesthetic works. He begins with his view of writing that "creative writing cannot be taught, but we can learn to remove many of the impediments to creativity". Discussion of various elements: characterization, writer as creative filter, challenge to express the inexpressible, universality of experience ("you have to become all men at all times: leave yourself and become the other. Gamble on truth"). How keeping a journal can aid in these ventures: "This means that sometimes, for the sake of truth, you have to write things that are personally offensive to you .... This comes most most naturally from keeping an absolutely private journal." Then there is a section entitled "Essences and Accidentals" which is a five page outline of Maritain's ideas fromCreative Intuition in Art and Poetry(Griffin's aesthetic Bible). Finally, some Griffin notes on techniques, revision, things to avoid and misplaced motivations. [included herein is a folder containing one stray sheet of notes in Griffin's hand, plus a three-page carbon typescript he made from Maritain'sCreative Intuition, ("definitions of art").]. The remainder of this notebook is as profound in the personal sense as the first portion is in the artistic sense. Griffin arrived in Toronto on June 11, 1977. He was met at the airport by Dr. Viktor Frankel, a thinker Griffin had long admired and was meeting for the first time. Frankel is best known for his first book,Man's Search for Meaning. His account of enduring a Nazi concentration camp and the existential opus that begins his psychoanalytical career as the founder of logotherapy. The next day, Griffin had a long dialogue with Frankel which he called, ..a great interview. I have never in my life met a man whose thoughts and conclusions so nearly matched my own." Griffin discusses Frankel's ideas at great length and their affinity to his own, less systematic worldview.. Also at great length, Griffin discusses his depleted physical energy due to diabetes and heart-related ailments. "My problem, my physical condition obliges me to make demands on others that go against my conscience. When others through love and perception sense the needs and volunteer the aid, then the conflict ceases and is replaced by an overwhelming gratitude. It has always been profoundly repellant to me to have to ask someone for what must be given. That is the great dissonance of my life: My needs, for example, deprive my wife, Tom [Father Tom McKillop], even my children, of the peace and rest they need...no matter how willing they are to help. Because I try to hold off asking until too late, I face them with crises and fatigue. This destroys me and worsens the condition. I hold off asking (imposing) until I then grow sick and cry out for help.". In rereading the "Scattered Shadows" chapters inThe Reader, Griffin was deeply struck by the attitude (of false heroism) he had while slowly losing his sight in France thirty years earlier, in 1946. But he recognized the falsity then and overcame his own hypocrisy. "Strange indeed--my present helplessness and confusion wiped from memory the very meaning of that earlier discovery. There I could find finally objective meaning--the fragments were finally perceived as a whole. This time [with one leg amputated, with regular heart failures, constant pain and insomnia] I have been unable to do that--so meaning is too often replaced by sadness, even despair, even blackness without light but I cannot feel it too often Too often everything, even knowledge and perception seem wiped out by the heart-organ's physical inability to function--so the symbolic and real heart get clouded, desperate, fragmented, unwhole--and I know and hate-it-and beg for help.... Dr. Frankel refreshed these dim memories that have so permeated all my work."
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[This is Griffin's final travel notebook, recording a visit he made to the Toronto home of Father Tom McKillop, his closest friend and spiritual advisor in the final few years. The entries reflect the desperate state of Griffin's health. Any intention of lecturing or doing interviews was cancelled. He simply spent time with his friend, made his confession, and received communion each day as they said the Mass together. Despite all the discomfort, Griffin felt "great joy to be back in this peaceful house, in the safety and security of friendship".
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[This final notebook postdates the last entry in his typewritten journal, which itself runs only 13 single spaced typed pages, from January until May 24, 1980 (and ending on page 2762).. From that last typed passage until the first entry in this final autograph notebook, a full month had passed without any writing.. Then, on June 23 until July 17 of 1980, he scrawled his last fifteen pages in this notebook. In addition, there are three handwritten pages toward the back of the notebook: this is a preliminary draft for an article commissioned by Litton magazines, concerning his views on changing skin color. The draft is unquestionably the very last piece Griffin wrote other than these fifteen pages that end his overall Journal.. The piece on skin color was finished in typescript (no carbon remains and perhaps he did not make one) for a June 17 deadline which he met and for which he collected a check from Litton for what would be his last published writing to appear in his lifetime
John Howard Griffin left his home the afternoon of July 21, 1980. He was checked into Medical Plaza Hospital by his long-time physician, Dr. E. Ross Kyger. Griffin lived another fifty days, expiring of a cerebral hemorrhage on September 9, 1980. He was less than three months into his sixtieth year. The funeral was held on September 11, and Griffin was buried at the Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, Texas, next to the grave of his old friend, Clyde Parker Holland (father of Griffin's widow, Elizabeth). He was survived by his wife, four children, his mother, brother, and two sisters.. Griffin's funeral was attended by hundreds of friends, family members, and devoted acquaintances. The Mass was written by Father Tom McKillop--a moving ceremony that included many of Griffin's words read and anecdotes remembered. Friends travelled from all over the United States and Canada to attend. A fuller version of that day is detailed in Fr.McKillop's text, in many news features and obituaries
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[Includes articles by Robert Ellsberg, Irving Sussman, Joe Noonan, and Cornelia Jessey
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[The first festival was organized by Father Tom McKillop and sponsored by the Youth Corps of Toronto; performers included actors Michael Kramer and Jimmy Pappas, performing a scene fromScattered Shadows; musical performances by pianist Luiz de Moura Castro, Clarinetist Bridget de Moura Castro, and sopranos Caudettte LeBlanc; plus readings of Griffin's work by Elizabeth Griffin and Robert Bonazzi
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[Commemorative edition of theThird Annual John Howard Griffin Festival. Limited edition, 500 copies.
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[On one of his last days in the hospital, John Howard Griffin said to father McKillop: "It's so hard to be reduced to nothing! All of I have left now is the pure silence of love." And that was everything.
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Photograph Archive purchased from Roberto Bonnazzi on behalf of Griffin Family 5/2015 From the Estate of John Howard Griffin and Elizabeth Griffin-Bonazzi
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(With tag that came back with Thomas Merton's body, and note written by Fr. Bamberger)
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(2019.2020.M068)
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© 2002 by George Curtsinger
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© 2001 The Estate of John Howard Griffin
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© 2004 by The Estate of John Howard Griffin
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© 2004 by Doc Rutledge
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