Kevin's Watch

As you all might be aware, Kent State Univ. has a collection of all SRD's work, among them the unabridged version of for instance TIW, 916 typed pages. Now someone there has been kind enough to sort them and make a presentation of their collection. It came on the net the 5th of jan and they are presented in 20 boxes and here we find maybe SRD's most obscure work:

In box 1 is his masters paper: "Vanity Fair:Evolution and Art", "Manfred: The Byronic Hero as existential prototype" and "In defence of Meredith: An analysis of the ending of 'The Ordeal Of Richard Feverel'". Who wouldn't like to read this?!

In box 7 we find: Cinderella vs the Publishing bussiness (11p)

In box 13 we find a transcript of a lecture he made in 1986 at a university...

You can all see for yourself at: speccoll.library.kent.edu/literature/prose/donaldson/donaldson.html

One really interesting fact found in box 2-4, is that THE MAN WHO KILLED HIS BROTHER was written before 1977, before the First chrons was published, who were written as early as around 1973.

Someday I must go there...


kasten

Thank you Kasten!! I've been curious to see his Masters thesis, and I didn't even know about the others. I will go and bury myself in the collection soon.

If you ever do make it to the States, look me up. Oh, well, maybe Oregon is kind of far from Kent State... But the invitation stands.

They finally made a listing, hey! The thing about Byronic heros could be interesting, and Epic Fantasy in the Modern World. Thing's mentioned in passing in that scholarly book about SRD, Variations on the Fantasy Tradition.

I wonder, if we begged, would they scan some of the shorter material so it could be read on the internet? It would be simple to set up, at that URL Kasten gave.

Actually, Fist and Faith suggested that as our next get-together after Elohimfest be at Kent State, to explore that material, if it is available to visitors...we have been referring to this possiblility as Haruchaifest.

That would be a good thing. Then might we hope that people who attend would get it on to the internet somehow? If for some reason it couldn't be done before that? I suppose it would require special permissions.

We have been thinking that, as well. Hopefully someone will volunteer to contact Kent State about any persmissions needed when we have our planning for future get togethers meeting at Elohimfest.

The good thing is that you can still read it there. It says "For Library use only" attached to the stuff on the items...

kasten

And at

kentlink.kent.edu./search/X?stephen+r+donaldson&SORT=D

quite a lot of interviews and related stuff written by others...


kasten

Oh, that was me...

kastenessen wrote:It says "For Library use only" attached to the stuff on the items...

...and thank you Joy, for the invitation! When I get to the States someday I'll have this in mind. To me it feels like Oregon and Kent State(Ohio, right? Middle-west?), are both very far away. But me and my family have a friend in Vancouver, Canada, who we will visit sometime, and that isn't too far from Oregon is it?

...and now I will ponder chapter 4 and 5...

kasten

Less than a day's drive.

Same goes for other KWers who may be passing through Oregon. Furls, we're practically neighbors.

In one of the interviews on the new Official SRD site (see Announcements to get there) Donaldson reveals that he indeed was a student at Kent State during the National Guard killings of the 4 antiwar protestors. That must have had a HUGE impact on his writing (for some reason The Wounded Land always reminds me of Vietnam...) and the developement of the Oath of Peace.

Hey, I know I've mentioned this before, but I seriously live about 20 minutes away from kent state. A half hour tops. Is there any kind of Recon you guys would want me to do? I have friends that go there...

Wow! Jem! There's a list of boxes of his material, at the top of this thread. My main interest, if it were possible, would be to get copies of his unpublished papers. There are probably copyright protections on them, but if not, it would be great to read his stuff that we will never have public access to.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to go over there and check it out so we have a concrete idea of the situation. I'll definately post the results ASAP

Woo Hoo!

Way cool! Couldn't you check in TIW if there is written accounts of TC's meeting with the unfettered one in the forest above Glimmermere, where the unfettered one tells him that the dreams he dreams is true? From one sentence to another the meeting has taken place...

kastenessen

I went to Kent State in 2009 for a day trip from Cleveland, and spend a couple of hours reading First Drafts of the First Chrons. I was surprised at how "finished" the first drafts were, so much of it read like the finished book. I had about 10 pages photocopied while I was there and I still have them, really just as a cool souvenir. Now if I only remember where I put them...I know I have them here at home somewhere.