Browse Items (9012 total)

Jim Boatwright, a.k.a. "the Colonel," was a professor at Washington and Lee University and editor of the literary magazine Shenandoah. Merrill had gotten to know Boatwright in Athens, although he also lived in Key West. Like Merrill, Boatwright died…

Richard & Charlee Wilbur, Merrill's Key West neighbors. Richard Wilbur was a fellow Amherst grad and accomplished poet, as well as a longtime friend and supporter of Merrill's work. Charlee Wilbur played matchmaker with Merrill and Peter Hooten.…

Hooten, Merrill, Yenser in a photo capturing a happy moment between the three.

J. D. McClatchy, an admirer and then good friend of James Merrill's, is an accomplished poet and librettist, professor and critic. He went on to become Merrill's co-literary executor, along with Stephen Yenser.

Maya Deren in a still from her film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). A Ukrainian immigrant, scholar of French Symbolism, progressive activist, avant-garde filmmaker and dancer, "Deren introduced Merrill to spirit possession not as a metaphor, but as a…

James Merrill with Tony Harwood, one of Merrill's first friends at Lawrenceville. The two remained friends, although their friendship became strained as Tony "grew progressively more detached and paranoid."

Mona Van Duyn: fellow prize-winning poet, early champion and good friend of James Merrill, she successfully solicited Merrill's literary papers for Washington University. In this photo she is standing in front of a painting of herself.

Stephen Yenser, Merrill's student, friend, correspondent, literary executor, and "ideal reader."

Tony Parigory and James Merrill. "Tall, smiling, Alexandrian Tony...In his worldly wisdom, off-color jokes, and macaronic bons mots...he resembled none of Merrill's friends so much as Ephraim, the Familiar Spirit."

David McIntosh, a disciplined, reserved painter of abstract landscapes who drew a "'firm and gentle line' between love and friendship, and what he wanted was the latter."