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Friday, June 09, 2006

Bellovian

One of UD's independent study students last semester took advantage of GW's proximity to the Library of Congress, and read the correspondence between Saul Bellow and his friend Ralph Ellison.

Most of Bellow's papers, however, have long been housed at the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library, which will now be getting yet more of them.

The University of Chicago said Thursday it has bought the uncollected papers of the late Saul Bellow from his estate, a trove that includes unpublished material and is likely to reinvigorate scholarship in one of Chicago's greatest novelists.

The acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, ends speculation that the papers would be sold at auction and scattered. Instead, the papers will be placed alongside those that Bellow long ago had donated to or deposited for safekeeping at the U. of C.'s Regenstein Library, creating a single repository for scholars.

"We already have more than 200 boxes" of Bellow documents, said Alice Schreyer, director of the library's special collections research center. "We think we'll be adding another 100."

She said the newly purchased papers cover the years since 1968. They include notebooks in which Bellow jotted down ideas and early drafts of works, typescripts and manuscripts that he amended, and correspondence with friends and colleagues.

"You can see the evolution of his works and creative process," she said. "And in the age of the word processor, this is one of the last great literary archives of one who did everything by hand on paper."

Bellow, Montreal-born but raised in Chicago, had been a student at the U. of C. and had taught there for more than 30 years. He disappointed Chicagoans when he left in 1993 to join Boston University. He lived in New England until his death, at age 89, in April 2005.

Walter Pozen, the executor of Bellow's estate, said Bellow told his family late in life that he would like his papers to go to the U. of C., although he didn't stipulate that in his will.

"There's a wonderful symmetry that his papers would end up [at the U. of C.]. I think it would make him very happy," Pozen said.