The University of Chicago Library > The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center > Finding Aids > Guide to the Isaac Rosenfeld Papers 1926-1983
© 2011 University of Chicago Library
| Title: | Rosenfeld, Isaac. Papers |
|---|---|
| Dates: | 1926-1983 |
| Size: | 3 linear feet (6 boxes) |
| Repository: |
Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center |
| Abstract: | Isaac Louis Rosenfeld (1918-1956) was a Chicago-born writer, critic, and university professor. The collection contains diplomas, correspondence, notebooks, notes, manuscripts and typescripts, and published works dating between 1926 and 1983, with the bulk of the material dating between 1937 and 1956. The papers primarily document Rosenfeld's writing career. |
The collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Rosenfeld, Isaac. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Isaac Louis Rosenfeld, (b. March 10, 1918, d. July 15, 1956), was a Chicago-born writer, critic, and university professor. Rosenfeld's only published novel, Passage from Home, echoes his upbringing in a lower-middle class Jewish household on the West Side of Chicago. Following his mother's death during the 1918 flu epidemic, Rosenfeld was largely raised by his stepmother and aunts, Dora and Rae. A sickly but precocious child, Rosenfeld demonstrated a keen intellect and verbal talent from an early age.
He attended the University of Chicago in the 1930s where his brilliance and humor made him the beloved center of a close-knit circle of literary intellectuals that included Saul Bellow and Oliver Tarcov. He studied under Eliseo Vivas and Rudolph Carnap, and in 1937 won the John Billings Fisk Prize for a group of lyrical poems. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1939 and his Master of Arts degree in 1941. That same year he married fellow University of Chicago student Vasiliki Sarantakis, and moved to New York City where he entered a graduate program in philosophy at New York University.
Rosenfeld left his studies at New York University in 1941 and began writing in earnest. He quickly rose to prominence in the New York literary scene, joining a group of writers that included Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz, Alfred Kazin, Irving Howe, Leslie Fiedler, and Robert Warshow who contributed regularly to the Partisan Review, The Nation, Commentary, The Kenyon Review, and The New Republic. Rosenfeld was made assistant literary editor of The New Republic, a position he resigned in the spring of 1944 to work on a barge in the New York harbor. His work as a barge captain was short-lived, and he was appointed the first literary editor of The New Leader in 1946. Rosenfeld was at his most prolific in the 1940s, publishing numerous short stories, reviews, and essays. Dial Press published his novel, A Passage From Home, in 1946. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction in 1947. Rosenfeld and his wife also had two children during this time: a daughter, Eleni, born in 1943 and a son, George, born in 1947.
Rosenfeld's marriage ended in divorce in 1951, and he left New York for a teaching position at the University of Minnesota where he joined a faculty that included Bellow, John Berryman, and Allen Tate. In 1954 he returned to Chicago to teach literature at the University of Chicago. He lived on the Near North Side of the city, and died in his home of a heart attack in 1956. A collection of Rosenfeld's essays and literary criticism, Age of Enormity: Life and Writing in the Forties and Fifties, was published posthumously in 1962. A collection of his short stories, Alpha and Omega, was published in 1966, and a third anthology of his work, Preserving the Hunger, was released in 1988.
The Isaac Rosenfeld Papers are organized into four series: Series I: Personal; Series II: Correspondence; Series III: Writings; and Series IV: Writings by Others. The collection contains diplomas, correspondence, notebooks, notes, manuscripts and typescripts of published and unpublished literary works, and copies of published works dating between 1926 and 1983, with the bulk of the material dating between 1937 and 1956. The papers primarily document Rosenfeld's writing career.
Series I, Personal, contains material related to Rosenfeld's education, as well as bibliographical and biographical information about Rosenfeld, including reviews of his writing and tributes to the writer following his death at the age of thirty-eight.
Series II, Correspondence, contains outgoing, incoming, and third-party mail, arranged chronologically. The third-party correspondence includes letters written by Rosenfeld's editor, Melvin M. McCosh, to various correspondents soliciting endorsements of Rosenfeld's King Solomon and Other Stories. Other noteworthy correspondents include Oliver Tarcov and William Carlos Williams.
Series III, Writings, consists of material related to the evolution of Isaac Rosenfeld's published and unpublished work from conception to production to publication. The series contains Rosenfeld's notebooks which include a range of diary entries, fragmentary jottings, and complete literary works. The notebooks are arranged chronologically and are followed by holograph manuscripts and typescripts of Rosenfeld's fiction and nonfiction, arranged alphabetically by title. The manuscripts and typescripts range from fragments to complete drafts. Copies of Rosenfeld's published short stories, essays, and reviews fall at the end of the series, and are arranged chronologically by date of publication. They consist primarily of contributions to The New Leader, The New Republic, and The Kenyon Review.
Series IV, Writings by Others, contains an academic paper written by Heinz Juergen Schering, presumably a student of Isaac Rosenfeld.
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/select.html
Bellow, Saul. Papers.
Series I: Personal |
| Box 1 Folder 1 | University of Chicago Diplomas, 1939, 1941 |
| Box 1 Folder 2 | Master's Thesis, "The Conception of Animal Nature in the Philosophy of John Dewey," 1941 |
| Box 1 Folder 3 | Bibliography, 1956 |
| Box 1 Folder 4 | Reviews of Isaac Rosenfeld's published works, 1966-1983 |
| Box 1 Folder 5 | Tributes to Isaac Rosenfeld, 1956-1977, Undated |
| Box 1 Folder 6 | Greek newspaper articles, Undated |
Series II: Correspondence |
| Box 1 Folder 7 | Isaac and Vasiliki Rosenfeld to Family, 1934-1952 |
| Box 1 Folder 8 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, 1937-1938 |
| Box 1 Folder 9 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, 1939-1940 |
| Box 1 Folder 10 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, 1941-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 11 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, 1951-1955 |
| Box 2 Folder 1 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, Undated |
| Box 2 Folder 2 | Isaac Rosenfeld to Oscar Tarcov, Undated |
| Box 2 Folder 3 | Alfred Kazin to Isaac Rosenfeld, 1946 |
| Box 2 Folder 4 | William Carlos Williams to Isaac Rosenfeld, 1944, Undated |
| Box 2 Folder 5 | Melvin M. McCosh to various correspondents regarding Rosenfeld's King Solomon and Other Stories, 1955, Undated |
| Box 2 Folder 6 | Vasiliki Rosenfeld to Edith and Oscar Tarcov, 1945, Undated |
| Box 2 Folder 7 | Vasiliki Rosenfeld to and from Myra Cholden, 1956 |
Series III: Writings |
| Box 2 Folder 8 | Notebook, circa 1935-1941 |
| Box 2 Folder 9 | Notebook, circa 1941 |
| Box 2 Folder 10 | Notebook, circa 1946 |
| Box 2 Folder 11 | Notebook, circa 1949-1950 |
| Box 3 Folder 1 | Notebook, circa 1947-1948 |
| Box 3 Folder 2 | Notebook, circa 1953 |
| Box 3 Folder 3 | Notebook, "The Empire," 1954-1955 |
| Box 3 Folder 4 | Notebook, 1955-1956 |
| Box 3 Folder 5 | Notebook, "The Enemy Part IV," Undated |
| Box 3 Folder 6 | Notebook, Undated |
| Box 3 Folder 7 | Notebooks, Undated (3 items) |
| Box 3 Folder 8 | Manuscript, "The Academic Life" |
| Box 3 Folder 9 | Typescript, "An Age of Enormity, Suggested Table of Contents" |
| Box 3 Folder 10 | Manuscript, "And in the Hour of Our Death" |
| Box 3 Folder 11 | Typescript, "Anna, Emma, and Love in Our Time" |
| Box 3 Folder 12 | Manuscript, "Art and Knowledge; The Problem of Technique as Discovery" |
| Box 3 Folder 13 | Manuscript, "A Barge Captain's Log" |
| Box 3 Folder 14 | Typescript, "Behind the Lion's Back" |
| Box 3 Folder 15 | Typescript, "The Blind Man" |
| Box 3 Folder 16 | Typescript, "Bull Session" or "I'll be Glad When You're Dead" |
| Box 4 Folder 1 | Manuscript and Typescript, "Cold-Water Flat" |
| Box 4 Folder 2 | Manuscript, "The Coalescence of Categories" |
| Box 4 Folder 3 | Manuscript, "Conversations with a Dog" |
| Box 4 Folder 4 | Typescript, "David and Bath-sheba" |
| Box 4 Folder 5 | Manuscript, "A Determination on the People of God's Earth" |
| Box 4 Folder 6 | Manuscript, "The Dogcatcher, His Story" |
| Box 4 Folder 7 | Typescripts, essays on Dostoevsky |
| Box 4 Folder 8 | Manuscript, "Easter Island" |
| Box 4 Folder 9 | Manuscript, "The Enemy" |
| Box 4 Folder 10 | Manuscript, "The Enemy at War with Himself" |
| Box 4 Folder 11 | Manuscript, "The Enlightenment" |
| Box 4 Folder 12 | Manuscript, "Existential Primitivism," Review of James Baird's Ishmael |
| Box 4 Folder 13 | Manuscript, "The Father of Paradise" |
| Box 4 Folder 14 | Manuscript, "The Favorite of the Gods" |
| Box 4 Folder 15 | Manuscript, "Feigenbaum's Dark Night of the Soul" |
| Box 4 Folder 16 | Manuscript, "Halberline" |
| Box 4 Folder 17 | Manuscript, "Have Fun With Your Fate," review of Frances R. Harwich's Have Fun With Your Children |
| Box 4 Folder 18 | Manuscript, "A Hot Time in the Old Town; The Great Chicago Fire, 1871" |
| Box 4 Folder 19 | Manuscript, "Hunimuni and Kanimani Strike it Rich" |
| Box 4 Folder 20 | Manuscript, "The Immortalist" |
| Box 4 Folder 21 | Manuscript, "In Exile" |
| Box 4 Folder 22 | Manuscript, "The Institute; A Novelette, Section 14" |
| Box 4 Folder 23 | Typescript, "The Irrelevance of Orthodoxy" |
| Box 4 Folder 24 | Typescript, "Introduction," ["It is Hard to be a Jew"] |
| Box 4 Folder 25 | Manuscript, "Italy" |
| Box 4 Folder 26 | Manuscript, "Job's Case" |
| Box 4 Folder 27 | Manuscript, "King David" |
| Box 4 Folder 28 | Manuscript and Typescript, "Land of Fire" |
| Box 4 Folder 29 | Manuscript, "Landowner's Castle" |
| Box 4 Folder 30 | Typescript and Manuscript, "The Liars" |
| Box 4 Folder 31 | Typescript, "Life Among the Eskimos" |
| Box 5 Folder 1 | Manuscript, "Life in Chicago" |
| Box 5 Folder 2 | Manuscript, "The Life of Buddha" |
| Box 5 Folder 3 | Manuscript, "A Literary Agent" |
| Box 5 Folder 4 | Manuscript, "The Literature of Mountain Climbing; A Branch of Theology" |
| Box 5 Folder 5 | Manuscript, "The Lover" |
| Box 5 Folder 6 | Manuscript, "Man is an Animal" |
| Box 5 Folder 7 | Typescript, "The Man Who Came to Dinner" |
| Box 5 Folder 8 | Manuscript and Typescript, "The Meeting of Kasturbai and Premilla" |
| Box 5 Folder 9 | Manuscript, "Mother Russia |
| Box 5 Folder 10 | Typescript, "Mother Russia" |
| Box 5 Folder 11 | Manuscript, "Mrs. Nathan and the Boys" |
| Box 5 Folder 12 | Typescript, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" |
| Box 5 Folder 13 | Manuscript, "My Favorite 'Forgotten Novel'" |
| Box 5 Folder 14 | Manuscript, "Negroes" |
| Box 5 Folder 15 | Manuscript, "The New Anna" |
| Box 5 Folder 16 | Manuscript, "The New Socrates" or "Le Nouveau Socrate" |
| Box 5 Folder 17 | Manuscript, "New Year's Eve" |
| Box 5 Folder 18 | Typescript, "On Account of a Hat, by Sholem Aleichem" |
| Box 5 Folder 19 | Typescript, "On the Question of Comprehensive Examinations" |
| Box 5 Folder 20 | Typescript, "Pangloss for Parents," review of Josette Frank's Your Child's Reading Today |
| Box 5 Folder 21 | Typescript, "Paper Dolls" |
| Box 5 Folder 22 | Manuscript, "Pierre Lux" |
| Box 5 Folder 23 | Manuscript, "Plot Outline," of Shakespeare's Hamlet |
| Box 5 Folder 24 | Manuscripts and Typescripts, Poetry, 1926, Undated |
| Box 5 Folder 25 | Manuscript, "Poor Nitsa" |
| Box 5 Folder 26 | Manuscript, "Public Figures and the Private Self" |
| Box 5 Folder 27 | Manuscript, "Reflections on Pesach" |
| Box 5 Folder 28 | Typescript, "The Reputation of American Literature" |
| Box 5 Folder 29 | Manuscript, review of George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying" |
| Box 5 Folder 30 | Typescript, review of Simone Weil's Waiting for God |
| Box 5 Folder 31 | Manuscript, review of Christopher Isherwood's The World in the Evening |
| Box 5 Folder 32 | Manuscript, "Ruth" |
| Box 5 Folder 33 | Typescript, "The Sacrifice of Benny, Who Learn at Night" |
| Box 5 Folder 34 | Manuscript, "A School Teacher's Xmas" |
| Box 5 Folder 35 | Manuscript, "Shiva and the Christians" |
| Box 6 Folder 1 | Manuscript, "The Spanish Dancer" |
| Box 6 Folder 2 | Manuscript, "The Susanna Melissa" |
| Box 6 Folder 3 | Manuscript, "Testament of a Zoo Man" |
| Box 6 Folder 4 | Manuscripts and Typescripts, essays on Tolstoy |
| Box 6 Folder 5 | Typescript, "A Treasure" |
| Box 6 Folder 6 | Manuscript, "The Troubled Midnight and the Noon's Repose" |
| Box 6 Folder 7 | Manuscript, "Two Friends" |
| Box 6 Folder 8 | Manuscript, "Vermont" |
| Box 6 Folder 9 | Manuscript, "The Village" |
| Box 6 Folder 10 | Manuscript, "Visitors" |
| Box 6 Folder 11 | Manuscript, "Wolfie" |
| Box 6 Folder 12 | Manuscripts and Typescripts, Untitled Fragments |
| Box 6 Folder 13 | Manuscripts and Typescripts, Untitled Fragments and Notes |
| Box 6 Folder 14 | Published works, 1937-1947 |
| Box 6 Folder 15 | Published works, 1948-1958 |
| Box 6 Folder 16 | Published works, Undated |
Series IV: Writings by Others |
| Box 6 Folder 17 | Typescript, "America and the Present Intellectual Situation in Europe; A Contribution to Clear Misconceptions Between Two Continents" by Heinz Juergen Schuering |