Browse Items (24 total)

Autograph and typescript draft of "18 West 11th Street" by James Merrill.

Autograph and typescript drafts of "Self-Portrait in Tyvec Windbreaker" by James Merrill.

Autograph and typescript draft for "The Victor Dog" by James Merrill.

Autograph and typescript drafts of "Yannina" by James Merrill. Collected in Divine Comedies.

Journal 59 includes numerous pages of early holograph notes and drafts toward "The Broken Home," one of which is included here. Merrill's most autobiographical poem to date, "The Broken Home" centered on his parents' troubled relationship. It was…

A poem draft with examples of wordplay, an important exercise for James Merrill throughout his writing life. This entry also contains notes on Ephraim and Cold War nuclear annihilation worries.

Early holograph notes and drafts toward the poem that would become “18 W 11th St.” The poem regards his childhood NYC home, which was accidentally blown up by radicals living there and making homemade bombs in the basement.

Notes on David McIntosh visit to Stonington coming to an end. This entry includes the first version of first two lines of "The Kimono."

Journal 50 contains Merrill's last poem draft, called "The Next to Last Scene," scribbled down (without his glasses) the day before he died of a heart attack. It was unusual for Merrill to title the first draft of a poem in his notebook.

Published inBraving the Elements,"Days of 1935" was a fantasy narrative about being kidnapped as a boy, à la the "Lindbergh baby," reflecting a real fear the wealthy had after the kidnapping and death of Charles Lindbergh's infant son, in…