Browse Items (15 total)

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.…

Photograph of James Merrill receiving an honorary doctorate at Amherst College from Calvin H. Plimpton, June 7, 1968.

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."

Typescript [photocopy] draft of Amherst College's President Calvin H. Plimpton's introduction for James Merrill's honorary doctorate, June 7, 1968.

“A la Recherche du temps perdu: Impressionism in Literature” was James Merrill's senior thesis on Proust from Amherst, 1946. At 106 pages, it is by far Merrill's longest piece of literary criticism and his most scholarly production. Merrill…

The Black Swan, Kimon Friar's privately printed book of James Merrill's college poetry, probably at least partially financed by Merrill, himself. This copy inscribed to "Jonnie."

Olio, Amherst College's yearbook featuring James Merrill, 1946.

Lawrentian, vol. 56 no. 1. This issue of the Amherst alumni magazine features a cover story on poetry entitled "The Uncertain Future of Poetry" that contains an interview with James Merrill.

Typescript draft of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu: Impressionism in Literature by James Merrill. This was written during Merrill's senior year at Amherst, 1946-1947.

Newspaper clipping of "Pulitzer Bullish on Merrill '47" by David Applefield from the Amherst Student.