Tennessee Williams

45 boxes (20 linear ft.) of drafts, scripts, correspondence and other materials.

Collection contains manuscripts of several of Williams' published and unpublished plays, play fragments, short stories, screen scenarios, and poems. Includes transcripts of early versions of Sweet bird of youth and The night of the iguana. Also includes uncorrected proofs and galleys of Gilbert Maxwell's book, Tennessee Williams and friends (1965).

The collections contains 14 titled and untitled manuscripts, manuscript fragments and fair copies of poems and short stories by Williams including "The blanket roll blues," "A call," "Elegy for an artist (for Florence Biddle Ver Steeg)," "The painted masque," "Roses," "The vanished nymph," "Virginia H. Jones, an appreciation," and "The Christmas blocks."
There are also drafts of two letters to the University of Iowa re Williams entering their drama department, drafts of a letter to Harold Clurman, Irwin Shaw and Molly Day Thacker re his winning of the Group Theatre Prize for "American Blues," and a draft of a notice to potential producers describing the origin of "Stairs to the roof."

Most of the material is dated from 1942 to 1982 though there are mementos, such as photographs of Williams' family, which date earlier. The manuscripts by Williams are primarily from the 1960s to 1982. There are six series: Correspondence; Works; Personal; Works by Other Authors; Photographs; and Audiotapes. The archive contains notes, diaries, drafts, re-writes, scripts, typescripts, programs, flyers, ads, clippings, art work, tapes, notebooks, awards, photographs and realia.

These materials document the family, life, and work of the American playwright, born Thomas Lanier Williams. The collection contains numerous manuscript drafts, including those for his best known plays The Glass Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Also included are large amounts of newspaper clippings, correspondence, and photographs.