Robert A. Wilson collection related to James Purdy

Born in Ohio on July 17, 1923, James Purdy is one of the United States’ most prolific, yet little known writers. A novelist, poet, playwright and amateur artist, Purdy has published over fifty volumes. He received his education at the University of Chicago and the University of Peubla in Mexico. In addition to writing, Purdy also has served as an interpreter in Latin America, France, and Spain, and spent a year lecturing in Europe with the United States Information Agency (1982).

From the outset of his writing career, Purdy has had difficulties attracting the attention of both publishers and critics. His first several short stories were rejected by every magazine to which he sent them, and he was forced to sign with a private publisher for his first two books, 63: Dream Palace and Don’t Call Me by My Right Name and Other Stories, both published in 1956. Hoping to increase his readership, Purdy sent copies of these first two books to writers he admired, including English poet Dame Edith Sitwell. Sitwell raved about Purdy’s work and helped convince an English publisher, Gollancz, to publish and distribute Purdy’s books in England. Purdy’s writing was introduced in the United States a year later when his previous books were published together in one volume, Color of Darkness: Eleven Stories and a Novella (1957).

Most of Purdy’s work has been the subject of mixed critical response. While some, like Sitwell and book dealer Robert A.Wilson, appreciate the artistry of Purdy’s work, many American publishers and critics regard his work as too daring and risque. In a 1990 letter to Wilson, Purdy wrote, “Dame Edith Sitwell once told me I was the wrong color, race, religion, and talent ever to be accepted by the New York Establishment. I didn’t understand quite the full meaning of her words at the time. Now I do. I want to leave the US eventually and never come back. But I haven’t earned enough money to live here, let alone depart” (F3). Many of Purdy’s letters reflect this frustration.

Despite his lack of commercial popularity in the United States, Purdy is not entirely without critical success. He won a National Institute of Arts and Letters grant in literature in 1958, followed by Guggenheim fellowships in both 1958 and 1962. Purdy is also the recipient of a Rockefeller grant, a Ford Foundation Grant (1961), and a P.E.N.-Faulkner Award nomination in 1985 for On Glory’s Course. Most recently, he was awarded a Morten Dauwen Zabel Fiction award from the Academy of Arts and Letters (1993).

Though Purdy has had much critical and commercial success abroad particularly in the Netherlands, he struggled to increase his readership in the United States. As he lamented in a 1988 letter to Wilson, “The good thing about the Dutch for me is they are very enthusiastic about my work while the American publishers seem to do everything in their power along with the New York Times to starve me to death.” (F3).

For many struggling writers and poets of the latter half of the twentieth century, Robert A. Wilson was a familiar and comforting presence. As the third proprietor of the Phoenix Bookshop in New York City from 1962 to 1988, Wilson provided both encouragement and financial support to beginning writers. A great lover of literature, Wilson specialized in rare books and manuscripts and shipped his material to enthusiastic readers in all parts of the world.

Through the bookshop, Wilson published the work of many notable writers, including Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, W.H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Bishop, and Richard Wilbur. During his twenty-six year tenure as the proprietor of the Phoenix, Wilson oversaw the publication of no less than 43 volumes.

An avid collector of rare books and manuscripts for his own personal collection, Wilson himself is the author of more than a dozen volumes, many of which he published on a mimeograph machine in the back room of the Phoenix. Among these are Auden’s Library (1975); Marianne Serves Lunch (1976); Robert Haggard’s “She” (1977), which Purdy praises in his December 9, 1977 letter to Wilson (F1); Faulkner on Fire Island (1979); and Tea With Alice (1978), an interview with his friend, Alice Toklas.

In 1988, financial difficulties forced Wilson to close the doors forever, thereby ending the Phoenix’s fifty-six year history.

Despite a minor misunderstanding over the price of a rare volume of Purdy’s Are You in the Winter Tree translated into Dutch, the collection seems to indicate that Wilson and Purdy are longtime friends. Wilson was, and by all accounts still is, a great admirer of Purdy’s work as evidenced by his diverse collection of Purdy’s manuscripts, published work, and ephemera.