Scope and Contents
Collection material is chiefly in English; with some material in French, Italiana, Russian, and Hebrew.
Dates
- 1847 - 1957
- Majority of material found within 1920 - 1950
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Box 100 (cold storage): Restricted fragile material. For further information consult the appropriate curator.
Boxes 131-133, 135: Restricted fragile material. Reference surrogates have been substituted in the main files. For further information consult the appropriate curator.
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Arrangement
Extent
71.91 Linear Feet (128 boxes + 5 broadside, 5 art, 1 cold storage)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
William Rose Benét (1886-1950)
Benét was educated at Albany Academy before attending Yale College (1903-1907), where he served as editor of the Yale Courant and contributed to the Yale Record. After college, Benét went to work for Century Magazine as a reader. He served in the U.S. Air Services during the First World War, and after the war took work as a copy writer for an advertising firm. In 1920, Henry Seidel Canby brought Benét on as an assistant editor at the New York Evening Post. In 1923, Canby, Benét, and fellow editors Amy Loveman and Christopher Morley left the Post to form the Saturday Review, originally known as the Saturday Review of Literature.
Benét was the author of several collections of poetry, a novel, and a collection of essays. His autobiography in verse, The Dust Which Is God (1941), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1942. In addition to his long-standing (1923-1950) position with the Saturday Review, Benét contributed to several compilations of English-language poetry and literature. Titles include The Oxford Anthology of American Literature and The Reader's Encyclopedia (1947).
Benét was married four times: first to Teresa Frances Thomson (1912-1919), with whom he had three children, then to the poet Elinor Wylie (1923-1928), to Lora Baxter (1932-1937), and lastly, to children's book author Majorie Flack (1941-1950).
Summary information is also available in the standard print and online biographical resources.
Processing Information
Former call numbers: Za Benet, Za B437 +1, Za B437 +2, Za B437 +G1, and Za B437 +S1.
- American literature -- 20th century
- Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973
- Authors -- United States -- 20th century
- Authors, American -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Bacon, Leonard, 1887-1954
- Benét, Rosemary, 1900-1962
- Benét, Stephen Vincent, 1898-1943
- Benét, William Rose, 1886-1950
- Berryman, John, 1914-1972
- Bishop, Elizabeth, 1911-1979
- Cather, Willa, 1873-1947
- Chubb, Thomas Caldecot, 1899-1972
- Coudert Brothers
- Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin), 1894-1962
- Dalven, Rae, 1904-
- Dos Passos, John, 1896-1970
- Editors -- United States -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Field, Sara Bard, 1882-1974
- Flack, Marjorie, 1897-1958
- Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939
- Frost, Robert, 1874-1963
- H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), 1886-1961
- Harrold, Charles Frederick, 1897-1948
- Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963
- Ingalls, Jeremy, 1911-2000
- Jeffers, Robinson, 1887-1962
- Lewis, Sinclair, 1885-1951
- Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972
- Morley, Christopher, 1890-1957
- Photographic prints
- Poets -- United States -- 20th Century
- Poets, American -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972
- Sitwell, Edith, 1887-1964
- Speyer, Leonora, 1872-1956
- Teasdale, Sara, 1884-1933
- Trausil, Hans, 1890-
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937
- Wood, Charles Erskine Scott, 1852-1944
- Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941
- Wylie, Elinor, 1885-1928
- Yale University. Alumni
- Title
- Guide to the William Rose Benét Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Michael L. Forstrom
- Date
- 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.