Guide to the Hervey Allen Papers, 1831-1965 SC.1952.01

Arrangement

Repository
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Title
Hervey Allen Papers
Creator
Allen, Hervey
Collection Number
SC.1952.01
Extent
90 Linear Feet (185 manuscript boxes, 9 oversized boxes; 194 boxes total)
Date
1831-1965
Abstract
Hervey Allen was an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A University of Pittsburgh Alumnus (1915), Allen grew up in Pittsburgh. His paternal grandfather, Edward Jay Allen, was a Civil War Colonel and influential Pittsburgh figure who traveled west over the Oregon Trail to survey and establish United States land claim in 1852 in what is now Washington and Oregon. The papers primarily document the writing, publishing, and producing of Allen's literary works. They include manuscripts and notes, contracts with publishers and producers, proofs, correspondence with editors and readers, illustrations, and published works. Also present are family papers which include personal materials such as correspondence, diaries, genealogical research, journals, newspaper clippings, photographs, and scrapbooks from multi-generations of the Allen family. Digital reproductions of portions of the collection are available online.
Language
The material in this collection is in English and French.
Author
Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez, Kelly McMasters, Margaret Huang, and Liesl Ostergaard.
Publisher
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Address
University of Pittsburgh Library System
Archives & Special Collections
Website: library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections
Contact Us: www.library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist
URL: http://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections

Existence and Location of Copies

Digital reproductions of the collection are available electronically within the finding aid.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into the following ten series:

Series I. Early Life, Education, Military and Academic Careers, 1890-1949

Series II. Manuscripts, 1900-1949

Series III. Published Material, 1919-1945

Series IV. Prose and Press About, 1920-1959

Series V. General Correspondence, 1903-1972

Series VI: Literary Correspondence, 1916-1956

Series VII: Projects, 1932-1949

Series VIII: Estates and Financial Matters, 1919-1952

Series IX: Family Papers, 1831-1965

Series X: Oversized Material, 1856-1953

Biography

Hervey Allen was born William Hervey Allen Jr. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 8, 1889. Son of William Hervey Allen Sr. and Helen Eby Meyers Allen, Hervey Allen was one of five children. Allen spent much of his childhood at his grandfather's home, Edgehill, reading from his extensive personal library. Allen was educated in Shady Side Academy and at Pittsburgh Public Schools, graduating from high school in 1906.

In 1908 he went to Annapolis, Maryland, to attend Werntz, "a cramming school" to prepare for entrance to the United States Naval Academy. He was admitted in 1909 as a midshipman, but was discharged due to a stomach disorder in 1910. He returned to Pittsburgh and worked for the Bell Telephone Company. He then enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Economics in 1911, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Allen graduated with Honors in 1915 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics.

He joined the National Guard with the 18th Pennsylvania Infantry, earning the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in 1916. His regiment was ordered to the Mexican border near El Paso, Texas, by President Wilson during the Mexican Expedition, where he wrote and published his first collection of poetry, Ballads of the Border.

Immediately upon his return, Allen was called to report to service for World War I on April 13, 1917. Allen was promoted to 1st Lieutenant of the 111th Infantry A.E.F. and spent the summer of 1917 guarding railroads in Western Pennsylvania. During the autumn of 1917, he went to Camp Hancock in Augusta, Georgia, for training with the 28th Pennsylvania Division. He deployed for France on April 30, 1918 aboard the Finland via New York. While at the front, Allen endured heavy fighting between the Marne and the Vasle. After the death of his captain at Fismette, he became Commander of Company B. He was seriously wounded there and was hospitalized on August 11, 1918. Upon his release, he served as an English instructor at the French Military Mission at Favernay. He was in Paris when the Armistice was signed. While at war, Hervey Allen wrote extensively and kept a diary of his experiences. From these writings Allen produced his most successful poem, The Blindman. His writings while at war inspired later works of his such as Toward the Flame and "It Was Like This: Two Stories of the Great War."

By the spring of 1919, Allen had been honorably discharged at Cap Dix, New Jersey. He settled in Charleston, South Carolina, to teach English, History, and Military Drill at the Porter Military Academy. With the exception of attending a summer English course at Harvard University in 1921, Allen remained in South Carolina, teaching at Charleston High School until 1924. While in South Carolina, he was influential in the revival of southern poetry, founding the Poetry Society of South Carolina with DuBose Heyward and others. By 1921, Allen had published two major poetry collections, Wampum and Old Gold and Carolina Chansons, Legends of the Low Country, a joint publication with Heyward.

Between 1924-1925, Allen was an English Instructor at Columbia University. By the latter half of 1925, Allen left Columbia to lecture American Literature at Vassar College. At Vassar, he met Annette Hyde Andrews, a student 18 years his junior whom he married in June 1927. During this time, Allen conducted extensive research on Edgar Allan Poe and published two separate works in 1926: Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe and Poe's Brother: The Poems of William Henry Leonard Poe, a collaboration with Thomas Ollive Mabbott. Allen also published a collection of poems entitled, Earth Moods and Other Poems, and Toward the Flame, a novel based on his diary at war.

From 1927 to 1932 Hervey and Ann Allen lived in Bermuda at Felicity Hall, a plantation in Somerset, Parish of Sandys. While in Bermuda, Allen published several poems and collections including Sarah Simon and New Legends both published in 1929. In May of that same year, he began to write Anthony Adverse, the massively successful historical novel set during the Napoleonic era telling a man's journey across several continents in search of meaning to his life. Allen left Bermuda to complete and publish the novel in the United States in 1933. Anthony Adverse became Allen's most successful book, topping the Bestseller list in 1933 and 1934. The novel sold over 3 million copies, was translated in 13 different languages, and became a motion picture produced by Warner Bros. and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The film starred Fredric March, Olivia de Haviland and Claude Rains, and earned several Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

After the publication of Anthony Adverse, Allen devoted himself entirely to prose. The Allens settled at Bonfield, a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and remained there until the start of World War II. By 1938, Allen had written Action at Aquila, a historical novel about the Civil War and "It Was Like This: Two Stories of the Great War," in 1940.

In 1943, following the death of Stephen Vincent Benét, Allen was appointed as co-editor to Farrar & Rinehart's Rivers of America series. Together with Carl Carmer, Allen reviewed manuscript submissions dedicated to the history of individual American rivers. Also in 1943, Allen was appointed by President Roosevelt to join the War Manpower Commission as a Regional Information Representative in Atlanta, Georgia. Despite these commitments, Allen continued to write and set out to begin his most ambitious literary project: a five part volume on American history starting with Forest and the Fort, published in 1943, Bedford Village in 1944, and Toward the Morning in 1948. These three titles, though published individually, consisted of the first volume, The City and the Dawn, of the series, The Disinherited. Allen was working on Richfield Springs, the fourth and final installment of The City and the Dawn, when he suffered a fatal heart attack in The Glades, his Coconut Grove, Florida home on December 28th, 1949. He was survived by his wife Ann and their three children, Marcia, Mary Ann, and Richard. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez, Kelly McMasters and Liesl Ostergaard in 2012.

Access Restrictions

No restrictions.

Copyright

All rights reserved. University of Pittsburgh.

Previous Citation

Hervey Allen Papers, 1831-1965, SC.1952.01, Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh

Preferred Citation

Hervey Allen Papers, 1831-1965, SC.1952.01, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Acquisition Information

Portions of the papers were purchased from the estate of Hervey Allen (Mrs. Hervey Allen) in February 1952. Subsequent materials were donated through Holt, Rinehart and Winston publishing (formerly Farrar & Rinehart and Rinehart & Company) in 1964-1965 and Lawrence Kunetka of J & S Graphics in 1969.

Scope and Content Notes

The papers consist of handwritten, holograph and typewritten drafts and manuscripts, research notes, singular serial publications, and associated material related to press coverage of Allen's novels and film adaptations. Extensive personal and professional correspondence exists with Allen's main publishing company, Farrar & Rinehart/Rinehart & Company, and other international publishers; financial and business correspondence related to his personal and professional finances; and personal correspondence with notable writers such as Stephen Vincent Benét, William Rose Benét, John Bennett, Carl Carmer, Padraic Colum, John Drinkwater, Robert Frost, DuBose Heyward, Amy Lowell, Kenneth Roberts, E.A. Robinson and Philip Wylie.

Also present are the Allen's family papers which include correspondence, diaries, genealogical research, journals, newspaper clippings, photographs, and scrapbooks. Of special interest are the papers of this grandfather, Edward J. Allen, a Civil War Colonel and early pioneer of the Pacific Northwest territory and Allen's two great uncles, William H. and George T. Allen, both of whom document their involvement in Ohio and Mississippi riverboat activities.

Subjects

    Corporate Names

    • St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
    • Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College)
    • Bread Loaf Writers' Conference of Middlebury College
    • University of Pittsburgh -- Alumni and alumnae
    • Farrar & Rinehart
    • Rinehart & Company, Inc
    • United States. War Manpower Commission

    Personal Names

    • Farrar, John Chipman
    • Allen, Edward Jay
    • Allen, Edward Jay -- Diaries
    • Benét, William Rose
    • Wyeth, Andrew
    • Lowell, Amy
    • Frost, Robert
    • Butcher, Fanny
    • Benét, Stephen Vincent
    • Alexander, John White
    • Allen, Hervey -- Alumni and alumnae

    Family Names

    • Allen family

    Geographic Names

    • Oregon National Historic Trail -- History
    • United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
    • United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865

    Genres

    • Personal papers
    • Manuscripts for publication
    • Correspondence
    • Family papers
    • Financial records

    Other Subjects

    • Poets, American -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
    • Poets, American -- 20th century
    • Authors, American -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
    • Authors, American -- 20th century
    • West (U.S.) -- History -- 19th century
    • World War, 1914-1918

Container List