American novelist
Francis Steegmuller (July 3, 1906 – October 20, 1994) was an American biographer, translator and fiction writer, who was known chiefly as a Flaubert scholar.
Life and career
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Steegmuller graduated from Columbia University in 1927.[1] He contributed numerous short stories and articles to The New Yorker and also wrote under the pseudonyms of Byron Steel and David Keith. He won two National Book Awards—one in 1971 for Arts and Letters for his biography of Jean Cocteau (Cocteau: A Biography),[2] another in 1981 for Translation for the first volume of Flaubert's selected letters (The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857)[3]—and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal. His first wife was Beatrice Stein, a painter who was a pupil and friend of Jacques Villon; she died in 1961. He married the writer Shirley Hazzard in 1963. His collected papers are held at two universities: at Yale University, the James Jackson Jarves (1818–1888) Papers and the Francis Steegmuller Collection for Jacques Villon; at Columbia University, the Francis Steegmuller Papers 1877–1979.[1] He died in Naples, Italy.
Correspondence
- Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives
- Series 1: Correspondence
- Folder 1.61 mf 2168:401, Title S 1942, Steegmuller, Francis
- Folder 1.303 mf 2183:1292, mf 2184:4, Title Fire Letters 1958, Steegmuller, Francis
- William A. Bradley Literary Agency Records, 1909-1982, Harry Ransom Humanities Center, The University of Texas at Austin
- Series I. Author Correspondence, 1909-1982, Box 58 Folder 8, Steegmuller, Francis, 1928-1982.
- The John Malcolm Brinnin Papers, 1930 - 1981, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
- Series I. Literary and professional correspondence, 1930 - 1982, Box 19 Folder 408, Steegmuller, Francis, 1906-,
- 1971 Oct 25 ALS 2p
- 1972 Jun 22 ACS 1p
- Cummings, E.E. (Edward Estlin), 1894-1962. Papers Archived 2007-03-17 at the Wayback Machine, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
- Series: I. MS Am 1823: Letters to E. E. Cummings, (1261) Steegmuller, Francis, 1906- 3 letters; 1959-1962.
- Series: II. MS Am 1823.1: Letters from E. E. Cummings, (353) King, Madeleine, recipient. 1 letter; [1959] Includes letters to Stephen K. Oberbeck, Charlotte B. Howe, Mae Ward and F. Steegmuller
- Series: III. MS Am 1823.2: Letters to Marion (Morehouse) Cummings, (241) Steegmuller, Francis, 1906- 1 letter; 1959.
- Mina Kirstein Curtiss Papers, 1913-2005, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
- Series III. Correspondence, (1913–85), Box 15 Folder 6, Steegmuller, Francis, 1948–84, n.d.
- Levin, Harry, 1912-1994. Papers Archived 2007-03-19 at the Wayback Machine, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
- Series: I. Correspondence, (939) Steegmuller, Francis, 1906-. Correspondence with Harry Levin, 1954-1987. 3 folders.
- Series: III. Other correspondence
- B. Letters to Elena Levin, (1226) Steegmuller, Francis, 1906-. Letter to Elena Levin, 1970. 1 folder.
- C. Correspondence by others, (1261) Bond, W.H. (William Henry), 1915-. Letters to others, 1966-1978. 1 folder. Includes letters to Francis Steegmuller, The Times Literary Supplement, and Jeremy Treglown.
- Jacques Seligmann & Co. Records, 1904-1978 in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Series 1: Correspondence, 1913-1978; 1.3: General Correspondence, 1913-1978
- Box 091, Steegmuller, Francis, 1946-1956
- Series 2: Collectors Files, 1904-1977, undated; 2.1: Collectors, 1908, 1917-1977, undated
- Box 208, Steegmuller, Francis, undated
- Francis Steegmuller Correspondence with Charles Antin, Department of Special Collections & University Archives Archived 2020-08-11 at the Wayback Machine, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa
- 33 autograph and typescript postcards and letters dating from 1965 to 1978 from Francis Steegmuller to Charles Antin of Viking Press, all relating to Steegmuller's translation of Flaubert's Novembre.
Biographical references
Many of the pages cited below can be read on Google Books if you click on the title of the book.
- Julian Barnes, Nothing to be frightened of (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), pp. 132, 166, 168
- Hyman Bogen, The Luckiest Orphans: a history of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 219
- Barbara A. Burkhardt, William Maxwell: a literary life (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005), pp. 189–190, 196, 260, 271
- Richard M. Cook, Alfred Kazin: a biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 237–238, 388-389, 395
- Scott Donaldson, John Cheever: a biography (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2001), pp. 158, 254
- Richard Greene, editor, Graham Greene: a life in letters (London: Little, Brown, 2007), pp. 330–1, 332
- Lawrence Jackson, Ralph Ellison: emergence of genius (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002), pp. 369, 376, 383, 384, 413
- Greg Johnson, editor, The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates 1973 - 1982 (New York: Ecco, 2007), p. 469
- Catherine McNamara, School days remembered: oral history interview with Francis Steegmuller (Oral history project. Friends of the Greenwich Library), (Greenwich, CT: Greenwich Library Archived 2007-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, 1978)
- David Marr, editor, Letters / Patrick White (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 474, 499, 528, 530, 532-3, 575, 625, 637, 643
- Albert Murray, John F. Callahan, eds., Trading Twelves: the selected letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (New York: The Modern Library, 2000), pp. 6, 10, 23, 26, 160, 165
- Graham Payn, Sheridan Morley, eds., The Noël Coward Diaries (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2000), p. 623
- Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: a biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), pp. 172, 212-13, 215, 216, 232, 233, 236-7, 240, 241, 242, 250, 259, 331, 332, 405
- Ned Rorem, The Later Diaries 1961–1972 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2000), pp. 196, 277, 319–320, 343
- Martin Stannard, Muriel Spark: the biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), pp. 271–2, 274, 276, 284, 299, 404
- Diana Trilling, The Beginning of the Journey: the marriage of Diana and Lionel Trilling (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993), pp. 83, 122
- Alec Wilkinson, My Mentor: a young man's friendship with William Maxwell (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002), pp. 110, 126, 146
- Alan Ziegler, The Writing Workshop Note Book: notes on creating and workshopping (Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2008), p. 12