- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Creator:
- Coxe, Louis Osborne, 1918-
- Collector:
- Princeton University. Library. Special Collections
- Title:
- Louis O. Coxe Collection
- Repository:
- Manuscripts Division
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/6h440s48w
- Dates:
- 1941-1977
- Size:
- 14 boxes and 5.4 linear feet
- Storage Note:
- Firestone Library (mss): Box 1-14
- Language:
- English
Abstract
Louis O. Coxe (Princeton Class of 1940) was a noted twentieth-century poet, playwright, and critic. The collection contains autograph and typescript versions of Coxe's poetry and sixteen of Coxe's notebooks. Also included are materials for the play Billy Budd, such as notes, drafts, worksheets, galley proofs, and production notes.
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Description:
The collection contains over sixty autograph and typescript manuscripts of verse by Coxe (Princeton Class of 1940), as well as sixteen of the poet's notebooks. One of the notebooks consists of verse written in the years 1943-1944 during Coxe's naval service, most of which appear in the volume The Sea Faring. Manuscripts for The Strait and Other Poems (early version of the published collection The Last Hero and Other Poems) and the play Uniform of Flesh (early version of Billy Budd, co-authored with Robert Chapman) are included. There are several additional folders of Billy Budd material, including notes, drafts, worksheets, and galley proofs, as well as papers related to the play's production and publication (contracts, financial statements, programs, etc.).
Additional accessions include thirteen letters to Augustus Sherrill Whiton, Jr., Princeton Class of 1940, dating from 1941 to 1943, including 3 manuscript poems; one letter to Hamilton and Janet Cottier, dated Dec. 2, 1977; five letters (1965-1967) from Donald Davidson; and a typescript copy of The Sea Faring and Other Poems with printer's marks.
- Arrangement
This is an unprocessed collection. The additions (AM 1992-73) remain in their original arrangement.
- Collection Creator Biography:
Coxe, Louis Osborne, 1918-
Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, Louis O. Coxe was an American poet. A 1940 graduate of Princeton University, Coxe taught English for brief periods at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Minnesota before joining the faculty at Bowdoin College (1956), where he remained until his death.
Collection History
- Acquisition:
Mostly gifts of author, along with 2 folders of material gifted by Prof. Willard Thorp, 7 copies of poems gifted by Samuel H. Monk, and 3 cartons of material purchased from Edith Coxe in 1992.
- Appraisal
No appraisal information is available.
- Processing Information
This is an unprocessed collection. The contents list provided is a preliminary inventory for the additions (AM 1992-73).
Biography written by Alyxandra Cullen, '09.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research use.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Inquiries regarding publishing material from the collection should be directed to RBSC Public Services staff through the Ask Us! form. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
- Credit this material:
Louis O. Coxe Collection; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/6h440s48w
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- Firestone Library (mss): Box 1-14
Find More
- Bibliography
The following sources were consulted during preparation of biographical note: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 5.
- Subject Terms:
- American drama -- 20th century.
American poetry -- 20th century.
Poets, American -- 20th century -- Manuscripts. - Genre Terms:
- Correspondence -- 20th century
Manuscripts -- 20th century.
Notebooks -- 20th century
Plays -- 20th century.
Poems -- 20th century. - Names:
- Whiton, Augustus Sherrill, 1887-1961
