Browse Items (206 total)

A Ouija séance transcript of the recently-deceased Tony Harwood describing the experience of his death.

Kimon Friar letter to James Merrill, airing his grievances and declaring simple friendship between them is impossible, coming after a decade of a "stiff, formal relationship" for the former lovers.

A Lawrenceville School class photograph, with James Merrill in the second row on far right. Also pictured is Tony Harwood, in the top row, second from right.

James Merrill reads "Mandala" in the Women's Building at Washington University, 1971.

During the March 29 and April 26, 1976 séances, higher powers (over Ephraim) began revealing the cosmology that Merrill would document in Mirabell: Books of Number and Scripts for the Pageant. It was during this time period, after finishing…

During the March 8, 1986 séance James Merrill gets relationship advice from Ephraim concerning Peter Hooten, with mention of the fight that led to Merrill pushing Hooten into the pool.

Maria Mitsotaki and James Merrill. Merrill's face is bound as a result of Bell's Palsy, an episode recounted in "The Thousand and Second Night" (see also the manuscript pages for that poem).

"[Maria] was pert, pretty, small and sweet...and able…

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…

Mona Van Duyn letter to James Merrill in which Van Duyn requests on behalf of Washington University Libraries to start collecting Merrill's literary papers at Washington University. Van Duyn’s personal inquiry persuaded Merrill to accept the…

National Book Award Acceptance Speech for Merrill's first NBA, for Nights and Days. There was a sideshow at that year's ceremony, with a large group in the audience walking out in protest of the Vietnam war when Hubert Humphrey spoke.