Handwritten and typed manuscripts, galley proofs, screenplays, correspondence, research materials and notes, legal, business, and financial records, photographs, audio and video recordings, books, magazines, clippings, scrapbooks, electronic records, drawings, and awards document the life, work, and family of Norman Mailer from the early 1900s to 2005. The bulk of the papers arrived at the Ransom Center in rough chronological order; in general, this order has been maintained within the following six series: I. Literary and Other Activities, 1939-2005; II. Correspondence, 1939-2005; III. Legal and Financial, 1944-2005; IV. Family and Personal, 1919-2001; V. Works by Others, 1946-2005; and VI. Serial Publications, 1941-2005. Most of the papers are in English, with small amounts of correspondence and clippings in French, Spanish, German, and Yiddish or Hebrew, plus several French language videos.
Series I. makes up more than half of the collection and contains extensive and thorough records of Mailer's literary activities, dating from his entry into Harvard in 1939 through 2005, as well as Mailer's numerous social, political, and film-making activities. The bulk of the series consists of handwritten and typed drafts of Mailer's books, plays, screenplays, poems, speeches, and journal contributions, both published and unpublished. Numerous, heavily revised drafts are present for his major publications, including The Naked and the Dead (1948), Barbary Shore (1951), The Deer Park (1955), An American Dream (1965), The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (1968), Of a Fire on the Moon (1971), The Executioner's Song (1979), Ancient Evenings (1983), Harlot's Ghost (1991), and Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (1995). Extensive research materials, particularly for his later works, are also found in this series; correspondence and photographs are present to a lesser extent.
Mailer's archive encompasses a wide range of topics reflecting the depth of Mailer's engagement in the issues and events of his lifetime: his controversial commentary on race, culture, and sexuality in The White Negro (1957); his portrayal of women in An American Dream (1965) and his later writing on birth control and the role of women in American society; his commentaries on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the Vietnam War and the 1967 March on the Pentagon, and Democratic and Republican political conventions from the 1960s to the 1990s; his coverage of the 1974 heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire (The Fight, 1975); his analysis of personas and events from the 1960s that continue to loom large in the American cultural imagination, including Marilyn Monroe, the Kennedy assassination, and Project Apollo; his contributions to the cultural debates on capital punishment and prisoners' rights in The Executioner's Song (1979) and support of prisoner and writer Jack Henry Abbott; and his explorations of government, espionage, race, and criminal justice in the CIA themed novel Harlot's Ghost (1991), and television docudramas on O. J. Simpson's murder trial and FBI agent turned spy Robert Hanssen.
Series II. Correspondence, 1939-2005, contains incoming and outgoing letters between Mailer and his family, friends, fans, fellow writers, politicians, activists, actors and directors, scholars, business associates, and numerous other individuals and institutions, documenting over sixty years of Mailer's life and impact on American literature and culture. Included are letters from James Baldwin, William F. Buckley, Jr., Truman Capote, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Allen Ginsberg, Lillian Hellman, Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, Henry Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, George Plimpton, William Styron, Gore Vidal, and Kurt Vonnegut among numerous others.
The extensive legal and business records contained in Series III. Legal and Financial complement Mailer's works and correspondence. These records include contracts, investment and real estate documents, tax records, and household bills and receipts that illuminate Mailer's business endeavors, lifestyle, work habits, and day-to-day activities. These records are subdivided into two subseries reflecting their origins from Mailer's attorney and Mailer's agent: A. Charles "Cy" Rembar and B. Scott Meredith Literary Agency.
Series IV. Family and Personal is the smallest of the six series. It is arranged into two subseries: A. Family and B. Personal. The bulk of the material originated with or was collected by Mailer's parents. Included is correspondence from their courtship, records from later international travels, scrapbooks, memorabilia, and family photos. Also in the series are letters between Mailer's parents and extended family, and letters from Mailer to his parents.
Of particular note are Mailer's childhood writings and memorabilia. Other materials include letters, writing, and personal records from Mailer's first wife, Bea, family narratives written by his mother, and stories written by his sister Barbara Wasserman. Also present are Mailer's address and appointment books, passports, and gambling records, all dating from his adulthood.
The bulk of the photographs found in Mailer's papers are also located in Series IV. and include professional and informal images of Mailer, research photographs for his works, his book jacket portraits, photodocumentation of his activities, and Mailer family photographs. Of note are images from early 1960s portrait sessions with Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon, and original prints of the Bruce Davidson photographs that accompanied Mailer's 1960 Esquire piece "Brooklyn Minority Report: 'She Thought the Russians Was Coming.'"
Series V. Works by Other People contains published and unpublished works from Mailer's family, friends, other well-known writers, aspiring authors, and students. Included are works by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, J. Michael Lennon, Robert Lucid, Norris Church Mailer, Norman Podhoretz, Diana Trilling, and Dotson Rader.
Series VI. consists of serial publications containing interviews of or pieces by Mailer. Arranged alphabetically, they represent a small and incomplete portion of the total number of articles published by Mailer.
There are no film prints or copies of Mailer's late-1960s experimental films Beyond the Law, Wild 90, and Maidstone in the archive, but the movies are documented through business and financial records from Mailer's short-lived film company, Supreme Mix. Publicity materials, review clippings, and extensive production photos and movie stills complement the business records. The Mailer-directed, major studio adaptation of his book Tough Guys Don't Dance is well documented with correspondence, production materials, audition video tapes, and audience surveys.
Books, audio-visual materials, electronic records, and personal effects have been transferred to other departments within the Ransom Center. See the Transferred Materials description for further details.
The following collections at the Ransom Center contain additional Mailer-related material and are described in the Ransom Center card catalog:
El Corno Emplumado
Dobie, James Frank
Genesis West
Harper's
Malanga, Gerard
Purdy, James
The following Ransom Center collections also contain Mailer-related materials and are described in archival inventories in the Ransom Center reading room or online at http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/:
Abeles, Joseph
Adams, Alice
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Chester, Alfred
Czermanski, Zdzislaw
DeLillo, Don
Fiske, Thomas. Collection of Norman Mailer.
Hardwick, Elizabeth
Hellman, Lillian
Jones, James
Kenner, Hugh
Lennon, J. Michael. Collection of Norman Mailer Correspondence.
Loomis, Hillary Mills. Collection of Norman Mailer.
Lowell, Robert
Lubell-Naiman, Adeline. Collection of Norman Mailer.
Malamud, Bernard
Matthiessen, Peter
Naiman, Adeline. Collection of Norman Mailer.
Playboy Enterprises. Norman Mailer Files.
Singer, Isaac B.
Weidman, Jerome
Other institutions with Mailer research materials include:
Duke University, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections
Library. William Styron Papers.
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Special Collections.
Francis Irby Gwaltney Papers.
The University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library. Norman
Mailer Papers, 1957-1972.
Wilkes University, Farley Library. Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prizes
and other awards.
Yale University, Beinecke Library. Final typescript of The Naked
and the Dead.
Access and Use Note
Current financial records and records of active telephone numbers and email addresses for Mailer's children and his wife Norris Church Mailer remain closed. Social Security numbers, medical records, and educational records for all living individuals are also restricted. When possible, documents containing restricted information have been replaced with redacted photocopies.
Condition Note
In general, the materials are in good condition. Some of the childhood, college, and post World War II era materials contain highly acidic and brittle paper. Special handling is required to view these materials and in some cases, photocopies or digital reproductions have been substituted for the originals. Several fragile scrapbooks and notebooks have also been digitized for user access.
The Ransom Center Conservation Department has vacuum cleaned portions of manuscripts for The Fight, Marilyn, and The Deer Park due to mold infestation. One scrapbook and small portions of correspondence were also treated for mold. Notices have been placed on folders containing these materials, and patrons may wish to wear gloves and/or masks while using these folders.
Faxes on non-permanent thermal paper have been photocopied onto acid-free paper to preserve the image. Faxes bearing Mailer's handwriting have been retained along with preservation photocopies.
Provenance Note
Early in his career, Mailer typed his own works and handled his correspondence with the help of his sister, Barbara. After the publication of The Deer Park in 1955, he began to rely on hired typists and secretaries to assist with his growing output of works and letters. Among the women who worked for Mailer over the years, Anne Barry, Madeline Belkin, Suzanne Nye, Sandra Charlebois Smith, Carolyn Mason, and Molly Cook particularly influenced the organization and arrangement of his records.
The genesis of the Mailer archive was in 1968 when Mailer's mother, Fanny Schneider Mailer, and his friend and biographer, Dr. Robert Lucid, transferred papers from Mrs. Mailer's Brooklyn apartment and the basement of his residence at 142 Columbia Heights to the Day & Meyer, Murray & Young records storage facility in New York. Lucid organized and maintained the records, retrieving additional papers from Mailer's Brooklyn office and Provincetown home, and adding new materials in subsequent years as they were retired by Mailer.
Beginning with The Executioner's Song in 1978, Judith McNally served as interviewer, editor, researcher, organizer, correspondence secretary, and general assistant for Mailer. As Mailer's typist, McNally created and maintained all of the electronic records found in the archive. By the late 1980s, manuscript drafts, transcripts of interviews, and correspondence were all generated by McNally using word processing software on her home computer.
Also in 1978, Dr. J. Michael Lennon began assisting Dr. Lucid with the growing archive. In addition to retrieving new material created by Mailer, Lennon incorporated business files from Mailer's literary agent Scott Meredith and legal files from Mailer's cousin and long-time legal representative Charles "Cy" Rembar.
Once placed in the archive, the papers did not remain dormant. Mailer, on occasion, retrieved materials for further use, and Dr. Lennon and Dr. Lucid made extensive use of the papers for their own work. Dr. Lucid identified the contents of many files dating from the 1940s and 1950s, writing notes and descriptions on the folders. Photocopies of these original folders remain with the materials to preserve Dr. Lucid's information. Additional biographical notes and drafts by Lucid are located in Series V. Works by Others, as are large amounts of Dr. Lennon's Mailer-related notes and manuscripts.
Lennon transferred the records to Diversified Information Technologies in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, in 1994, and with the assistance of his wife, Donna, served as Mailer's chief archivist until the materials arrived at the Ransom Center in 2005. Mailer sent additional materials to the Ransom Center in the following years.
Judith McNally was in the process of transferring her Mailer-related computer disks and files to the Ransom Center at the time of her sudden death in May 2006. With no will or living relatives, all materials in McNally's possession were seized by the Kings County Surrogate Court in Brooklyn, New York. After several months, McNally's three laptop computers and numerous computers disks were released to the Ransom Center.
| Norman Mailer Papers Finding Aid | ||||||
| Title Page | Biographical Sketch |
Scope and Contents |
Series Descriptions |
Folder List | Index of Correspondents |
Index of Titles and Works |
Reference queries to: reference@hrc.utexas.edu
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