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A homemade Ouija board, one of numerous boards James Merrill and David Jackson employed through the years for their séances. Merrill said they preferred these to the store-bought boards because they allowed for more room for clearer and faster…

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.

James Merrill and David Jackson at Ouija board in Stonington. The photo was taken by Harry Pemberton, who took a roll of the mediums in action.

James Merrill and David Jackson's second séance (and the first that Merrill transcribed and preserved), in which they reached the spirit of "Kabel Barnes," a colonial farmer.

James Merrill and Kimon Friar, Merrill's Amherst teacher and lover. "Short, wiry, and dark, he was a high-minded, charismatic man of letters and an unabashed self-promoter."

James Merrill as a baby with his parents, Charles and Hellen. After three weeks in the hospital, Hellen recorded James's weight weekly, through December.

James Merrill as a boy on a slide. "As a child, Jimmy was always attended by someone...So it's striking that, as an adult, he remembered his childhood as painfully lonely...the loneliness of a young mind engaged with private thoughts of mortality,…

James Merrill as a cadet. Merrill was designated for "limited service only" because of poor eyesight.

James Merrill discusses the impetus to his relationship with Washington University's Modern Literature Collection, at the first James Merrill Symposium.