Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sitting at a desk looking at newspapers

Literature

Collections include the papers of novelists, poets, and playwrights; interviews, publications, and ephemera.

Overview

Although literary collections have not been the curatorial focus of the Hoover Institution, the papers of novelists, poets, and playwrights can be found in the archives. Highlights include letters by Czech novelist Josef Škvorecký, speeches by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writings by Pulitzer Prize–winner Allen Drury, science fiction by Cordwainer Smith, and, especially, the papers of Boris Pasternak and his family. The Firing Line Broadcast Collection also features interviews with authors such as Jack Keruoac, Eudora Welty, Tom Wolfe, Kurt Vonnegut, and Bret Easton Ellis.

Featured Collections

Pasternak Family Papers

Papers of Leonid Pasternak; his son, Boris Pasternak; and others

Josef Škvorecký Papers

Czech-Canadian novelist

Gleb Struve Papers

Russian-American literary historian

Andrei Siniavskii Papers

Soviet literary critic and dissident

Allen Drury Papers

US novelist; author, Advise and Consent

Irwin T. Holtzman Collection

Materials about Joseph Brodsky, Isaak Babel', and Boris Pasternak

Leopold Tyrmand Papers

Polish-American novelist

Paul M.a. Linebarger Papers

Science fiction writer "Cordwainer Smith"

Wallace Stegner Miscellaneous Papers

Research materials for his novel, The Preacher and the Slave

Firing Line Broadcast Records

Television series hosted by William F. Buckley, 1966–99

Literature Archival Collections

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Literature Library Materials

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News/Press
<i>Unpacking History</i> Opens In The Herbert Hoover Exhibition Pavilion

On September 27th the Hoover Library & Archives exhibition Unpacking History: New Collections at the Hoover Library & Archives opened in the Herbert Hoover Exhibition Pavilion with a public reception and remarks by Eric Wakin, Robert H. Malott Director of the Library & Archives.

September 30, 2016
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Unpacking History: New Collections At The Hoover Institution Library & Archives

A new exhibition, Unpacking History: New Collections at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, celebrates the variety, range, and historical significance of Hoover’s holdings by featuring rare and intriguing items from select collections acquired in recent years. The exhibition opens Tuesday, September 27, 2016, and runs through February 25, 2017.

September 27, 2016
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Civil Discourse
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Civil Discourse: William F. Buckley Jr.’s Firing Line, 1966–1999

The Hoover Institution Library & Archives exhibition Civil Discourse: William F. Buckley Jr.’s Firing Line, 1966–1999 commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of William F. Buckley Jr.’s legendary television program.  Television’s longest-running political talk show with a single host, Firing Line featured William F. Buckley Jr., a conservative and recognized master of debate, in conversation with many of the most remarkable—and often the most radical—public figures of his day.

April 19, 2016
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Hoover Expands Collections on Pasternak's <i>Doctor Zhivago</i>

Sergio d’Angelo was an Italian journalist and a member of the Italian Communist Party who worked in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. He also helped the Italian publisher Feltrinelli find new works by Soviet authors that might attract a Western audience. D’Angelo’s small but significant collection covers his acquaintance with Boris Pasternak and his role in getting  Doctor Zhivago published in the West. 

December 10, 2014
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Nikolai Morshen papers now in Hoover Institution Archives

Nikolai Nikolaevich Marchenko, a Russian émigré writer best known under the pen name Nikolai Morshen, taught Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and wrote poetry in his spare time. His father, Nikolai Vladimirovich Marchenko, pen name Nikolai Narokov, is known for two novels: Mogu! and Mnimye velichiny, translated into English as The Chains of Fear (Chicago: Regnery, 1958).

January 13, 2014
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Featured Find: Cold War Science Fiction

Paul M.A. Linebarger had the international pedigree and double life of a John le Carré character. Born to Sun Yat-sen’s American adviser, Linebarger grew up in China, Germany, and the United States, spoke six languages, and received his doctorate at twenty-three. After teaching at Duke, he was hired by the US War Department to serve as the Far East Asian specialist of the Psychological Warfare branch.

April 19, 2013
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Hoover Acquires Substantial Collection of Papers of the Late Yugoslav Dissident Mihajlo Mihajlov

Recently the Hoover Institution Library and Archives acquired more than seventy boxes of archival materials from the estate of the late Mihajlo Mihajlov (1934–2010), a Serbian writer, political activist, and dissident who was imprisoned for his critiques of Tito’s Yugoslavia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This collection, which augments an earlier donation made during Mihajlov’s lifetime, contains correspondence, publications, and audiovisual media that document the breadth of Mihajlov’s public career.

August 03, 2011
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Angela Livingstone, from the University of Essex, reviews Boris Pasternak: Family Correspondence 1921–1960

This collection of Boris Pasternak’s letters to his parents and sisters after they had left Russia offers vivid insights into what it was like for so gifted and honest a poet to live and work in Soviet Russia. We see Pasternak coping with everyday survival; looking after others; trying to understand history; alternately enduring and foiling “the terrible forbearance of the authorities” (p. 238); and being preoccupied by attempts to write something utterly new. Click here to read Livingstone’s review or here for information about the book launch.

July 21, 2011
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Review of Boris Pasternak: Family Correspondence, 1921–1960

In The Russian Review, Christopher J. Barnes, from the University of Toronto, reviewed Boris Pasternak: Family Correspondence, 1921–1960. Barnes highlights the “strong sense of the family nature of their messages” and the “common interests, concerns, and a unique spiritual kinship that overrode long years of separation.” Click here to see the review.

April 21, 2011
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