James L. Weil papers

The James L. Weil papers contain correspondence, production files and writings, records of the Elizabeth Press, printed and audiovisual materials, and personal papers. The collection is made up of twenty-one separate donations made by Weil from 1983 to 2005. The first several accessions consist exclusively of materials relating to publications by Weil, while later accessions, beginning with the October 1990 Acquisition, consist of larger groups of material including correspondence, production files, and other papers. Correspondence in the collection, which features letters from writers, journal editors, publishers, booksellers, the many libraries to which Weil made donations, and others, is thus spread over multiple accessions. It is either sorted roughly, into so-called letter general folders ("A" - "Z") or by date, or it is unsorted; the bulk of the letters are also still housed in original envelopes. Individual correspondents include: Bob Arnold of Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers, Cid Corman, Theodore Enslin, David Giannini, Lyman Gilmore, Henry Lyman, Simon Perchik, Felix Stefanile, Jack Stillinger, Pierre Ullman, and others. Correspondence can include enclosures, such as drafts of writings, photographs, and printed material. Most of the production files in the collection appear to relate to the limited edition chapbooks and printed keepsakes published by Weil under his own name (James L. Weil, Publisher) from the mid 1980s onward, though records relating to the Elizabeth Press (1963-1981) can also be found. The production files, which include correspondence, drafts, specifications, proofs, and printed versions, feature work by William Bronk, Cid Corman, Larry Eigner, Aleksis Rannit, Karl Shapiro, Felix Stefanile, and others. Printed materials include newspapers, journals, clippings, and offprints containing reviews and concerning literary matters such as modern fine printing and small press publishing.