Olga Rudge papers : addition

The Olga Rudge Papers Addition consists of material relating to the life and work of Olga Rudge received by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library after the processing of the 1990 accession of the Olga Rudge Papers was complete. The addition contains correspondence, personal and family papers, photographs, and a variety of printed material. The papers span the dates 1819-1996, but the bulk of the material dates from the 1960s through the 1980s.

The collection is housed in 62 boxes and organized into ten series: Correspondence, Personal Papers, Rudge Family Papers, Photographs, Music, Writings of Others, Newspaper and Magazine Clippings, Printed Material, Periodicals, and Audio Tapes and Other Recordings. Boxes 51-53 house Oversize material.

Series I, Correspondence , is housed in Boxes 1-7 and is organized into four subseries: General Correspondence, First Name Only Correspondence, Birthday Telegrams and Envelopes, and Third-Party Correspondence.

Most of the files in General Correspondence contain one to three letters to Olga Rudge, many from old friends and others who are more extensively documented in YCAL MSS 54. These include Pietro Ambrosini, Sabine Awiszus, Joyce and Geoffrey Bridson, conte Guido Chigi-Saracini, Mabel Duncan, Maria Favai, James Laughlin, Lindy Melton, Desmond O'Grady, Dachine Rainer, Peter Russell, Vanni Scheiwiller, Blanche Somers-Cocks, and Max Wykes-Joyce.

Olga Rudge's extensive correspondence with Ezra Pound is found in Boxes 1-32 of the Olga Rudge Papers, but folders 181-183 of this addition contain approximately twenty letters, notes and enclosures to Olga Rudge from Ezra Pound, most undated. A few are from the earlier years of their relationship, and most are written in the third-person style Rudge and Pound used for their most personal communications. A diagram in pencil by Pound of his mental and emotional universe is found in folder 181. The center of the circle is "E.P hiz poems," surrounded by circles for "E.P. hiz muzik and economiks," and "general prose." Further from the center are "her affairs--those to her advantage within a few months." The outer edge of the diagram is labeled simply, in large capitals, "NO." Folder 183 contains a note which may be in Pound's very late, shaky hand: "Heroic Olga insuperata. Where there beauty she saw it," annotated further by Rudge.

Third Party Correspondence, housed in boxes 6 and 7, holds over fifty files of letters addressed to Ezra Pound as well as fifteen that hold letters and letter drafts by him. As in the General Correspondence subseries, most of these files contain a small quantity of letters from correspondents whose connections with Pound are more extensively documented elsewhere. Correspondents include Alfredo Casella, Cyril Connolly, Achilles Fang, Guy Hickok, Adriana Ivancich, and Winaretta de Polignac. Most of the items in folders 352-366 are actually photostats annotated by Rudge, but folder 358 contains several drafts of notes to Donald Gallup in Pound's late hand.

Series II, Personal Papers , is housed in boxes 8-13 and contains personal papers of Olga Rudge, including agendas, calling cards, financial papers, legal papers, memorabilia and a few writings. Much of the material is of biographical interest. In her later years, Rudge attempted to document her own life extensively, creating albums of collected material, located in boxes 8 and 9, which are filled with informative items grouped thematically or idiosyncratically, including programs, letters, photographs, notes and memorabilia. Likewise, the notes in Box 13 concern the central events and persons in her life, particularly Ezra Pound; the I Ching notes and cards from 1985 supplement the 7 boxes of I Ching notebooks found in YCAL MSS 54. Memorabilia includes a keepsake book signed by numerous friends in honor of her 100th birthday in 1995.

Series III, Rudge Family Papers , fills boxes 14 and 15 and is organized into three subseries: Correspondence with Olga Rudge, Third Party Correspondence, and Family Papers. The two correspondence subseries contain mostly single letters by or to various Rudge relatives, particularly Rudge's mother, Julia O'Connell Rudge. Family Papers has been arranged alphabetically by family member and includes information on Ernest Harold Baynes's plans to domesticate the American buffalo; printed items on the singing career of Julia O'Connell Rudge; and several folders of material related to Peter Buchanan Templeton, a reporter during the 1850s and 1860s, including correspondence and credentialing letters; a scrapbook of clippings of his work, and several shorthand notebooks.

Series IV, Photographs, is housed in boxes 16-24 and contains photographs of Rudge, Pound, their family, Rudge's family, their friends and colleagues, and a variety of places and objects. Undated photographs have been placed in a rough chronological order when possible, but no attempt has been made to assign exact dates to them. The album housed in box 16, folder 572 contains several snapshots taken during Dorothy Pound's trip to the eastern Mediterranean in 1925-26, including several group pictures taken in Egypt. Photographs of Olga Rudge with others include shots of her 1921 summer in Capri with Renata Borgatti, Lindy Shaw-Paige, and Mimy Franchetti.

The subseries "Places" contains photographs taken by Ezra Pound during their walking tour of the Dordogne; shots of Rudge's homes in Sant'Ambrogio and Venice; and an image of Mabel and Ethel Duncan's apartment.

Series V, Music , is housed in boxes 25-29 and contains documentation of Rudge's musical career and research interests. Material related to her work for the Accademia Musicale Chigiana as secretary to conte Guido Chigi-Saracini fills box 25 and includes copies of the bulletin she edited, newspaper clippings and publicity material. There is one folder of contemporary newspaper clippings documenting her performances in the Concerti Tigulliani in Rapallo in the 1930s, and a folder of miscellaneous announcements and programs featuring Rudge. Boxes 28 and 29 hold papers and copies of microfilm connected to her substantial research on Vivaldi, which began in the 1930s.

Series VI, Writings of Others , (boxes 30-32) is arranged alphabetically by author. Most of the included items are printed or clipped copies of works; for example, folder 835 contains a copy of George Antheil's 1924 article about Pound's music for the Chicago Tribune, "Why a Poet Quit the Muses." A hand-illustrated copy of Morton Grinker's Meditation: A Cycle of eleven poems is located in box 30, folder 855. The series also contains a corrected typescript carbon of what appears to be the letters of Ezra Pound to James Laughlin; a photocopy of Donald Pearce's edition of Ezra Pound's correspondence with John Theobald; and a bound typescript of Dachine Rainer's "Giornale di Venezia," accompanied by a typescript poem dedicated to Rudge. Uncorrected galley proofs of Edith Sitwell's "Ezra Pound" are located in Oversize, box 51, folder 1199.

Items by Ezra Pound include galley proofs of Cantos XVII-XIX and "Cavalcanti;" the first printing of "Canto LXXIII" in Marina repubblicana on February 1, 1945; and a series of fragmentary notes probably written by Pound during the last years of his life.

Series VII, Newspaper and Magazine Clippings , is housed in boxes 33-36 and is organized into three topical subseries: Ezra Pound, Literature, and Other Subjects. There are fourteen folders of clippings concerning Ezra Pound, including book reviews, editorials, interviews, and obituaries. Articles, book reviews, and columns about other modern authors are located in Literature, alphabetically arranged by subject. Other Subjects contains files documenting Rudge's long-standing interests in topics including American history, Fascism in World War II, psychiatry, particularly psychiatric "abuses," and Venice.

Series VIII, Printed Material , (boxes 38-41) consists largely of miscellaneous printed material collected by Rudge, including advertisements, invitations, postcards and publishers' catalogs. Folders 1011-1021 hold many copies of Ezra Pound's funeral announcement, each accompanied by an envelope addressed in Rudge's hand.

Series IX, Periodicals, is located in boxes 42-49 and contains a variety of copies of magazines, quarterlies, newsletters and news journals owned by Olga Rudge. Political titles include L'Idea Sociale; The Social Crediter; and Social Justice.

Box 50 holds Series X, Audio Tapes and Other Recordings , which consists almost entirely of reel-to-reel tapes of readings and scholarly conference presentations. Folder 1182 contains an audio cassette of part of a meeting among Ezra Pound, Isamu Noguchi, and Buckminster Fuller at the Cini Foundation.

Oversize material is housed in boxes 51-53 and contains oversize items from all series.