Scope and arrangement
The Paul Auster papers date from 1963 to 2022 and cover all aspects of his career as a novelist, memoirist, poet, translator, and filmmaker. The collection is represented through typescript and holograph drafts; notebooks; audio and moving image recordings; correspondence; clippings; and photographs.
Auster's files are arranged into eight series that address Auster's writings, correspondence, press coverage, adaptations of his work by others, and awards and recognition from throughout his career. The collection details Auster's professional life, writing process, and relationships with artistic peers.
Nearly every work by Auster is represented in the first two series of the collection, Written Works and Films and Screenplays. This includes his early writing as a student at Columbia University; his 1970s work as a French translator and poet; his 1980s breakthroughs with the memoir, The Invention of Solitude, and novel, The New York Trilogy; continued work as a novelist and memoirist in the 1990s and 2000s; and his films Smoke, Blue in the Face, Lulu on the Bridge, and The Inner Life of Martin Frost.
The Correspondence series details Auster's professional, personal, and business dealings. This includes correspondence related to various publishing and professional matters; vast correspondence with writing and filmmaking peers; fan and reader correspondence; and correspondence with family and friends.
The rest of the collection consists of adaptations of Auster's work; dissertations and essays on Auster's work; works inspired by Auster; photographs; ephemera; and printed matter.
The Paul Auster papers are arranged in seven series:
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1965-2022
The Written Works series covers all aspects of Auster's writing career, with subseries related to genre or format. Held here are files detailing Auster's novels; memoirs and nonfiction work; poetry; translations; edited volumes and collections; and prose, plays, and essays. The series also contains files addressing Auster's dealings with publishers, including contracts. Files may hold typescript and holograph drafts (some with emendations and edits), notebooks, proofs, correspondence, promotional material, contracts and agreements.
Within each subseries files are arranged alphabetically by work. Files for each work are arranged to reflect Auster's writing process, which would often begin with a notebook (usually graph ruled). After a series of handwritten notebook drafts, he would move to typewriter, producing many typescript drafts; these typescript drafts would further be marked up with emendations and inserted typescript or holograph pages before being passed along to an assistant who would type up, on a computer, a final copy to be sent to editors and publishers.
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1989-2020
The Films and Screenplays series dates from 1989 to 2020 and covers Auster's career as a filmmaker and screenwriter. Files include drafts, correspondence, promotional material, audio and moving image recordings, contracts and agreements, and press.
Much of the series is devoted to the four films Auster is most known for: Smoke, directed by Wayne Wang and written by Auster; Blue in the Face, directed and written by Auster and Wang; Lulu on the Bridge, directed and written by Auster; and The Inner Life of Martin Frost, directed and written by Auster. Also held here are files related to unrealized projects, including collaborations with Wim Wenders and Mike Figgis; and multiple attempts at a Mr. Vertigo adaptation, including drafts with Philip and Belinda Haas, and later drafts with Terry Gilliam.
The series also holds files from various film festivals attended by Auster, including his time as a juror at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, the 2008 Estoril Film Festival, and the 2007 San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Files detailing the 1993 film adaptation of The Music Chance are held in Series V: Works and Adaptations by Others.
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1970-2022
The Correspondence series dates from 1970 to 2022 and holds incoming and outgoing correspondence from Auster's professional and personal life. Files may contain holograph and typescript drafts, letters, notes, postcards, faxes, email printouts, clippings, and other related material.
Auster corresponded widely with many of his artistic peers. Prominent correspondents include writers John Ashbery, Russell Banks, Charles Bernstein, Yves Bonnefoy, Sophie Calle, Peter Carey, J.M. Coetzee, Clark Coolidge, Robert Coover, William Corbett, Robert Creeley, Don DeLillo, Andre du Bouchet, Jacques Dupin, David Grossman, Edmond Jabes, Elmore Leonard, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Howard Norman, Michael Ondaatje, George Oppen, Ron Padgett, Michael Palmer, Orhan Pamuk, Charles Reznikoff, Philip Roth, Claude Royet-Journoud, Salman Rushdie, Lucy Sante, Charles Simic, and Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop; filmmakers Pedro Almodovar, John Boorman, Henning Carlsen, Mike Figgis, Terry Gilliam, Hal Hartley, Agnieszka Holland, Jim Jarmusch, Mike Leigh, Alexander Payne, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Walter Salles, Paul Schrader, Wayne Wang, and Wim Wenders; actors Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Michael Imperioli, Ricky Jay, Harvey Keitel, Mandy Patinkin, and Vanessa Redgrave; musicians Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Robyn Hitchock, Jocelyn Pook, Lou Reed, and Tom Waits; artists John Baldessari, Paul Karasik, Sam Messer, Joan Mitchell, David Reed, and Art Spiegelman; highwire artist Philippe Petit; President of Israel, Shimon Peres; and Weather Underground member and childhood/college friend, Mark Rudd.
The correspondence series addresses Auster's business dealings including his agent the Carol Mann Agency; various translators; and publishers such as Actes Sud, Alfred A. Knopf, Anagrama, Faber and Faber, Henry Holt, Penguin Books, Picador, Rowohlt Verlag, Seix Barral, and others.
The series also holds fan mail, reader mail, and media requests; and correspondence on Auster's membership with the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN International.
Filed at the end of the series is correspondence addressed to others about Auster, including Auster's wife, Siri Hustvedt, assistants, and editors.
Some correspondence may be addressed to Auster and Hustvedt. A small amount of correspondence may be addressed to Auster and Lydia Davis.
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1977-2021
The Press, Reviews, Interviews, and Public Appearances series, dated 1977 to 2021, holds files of press coverage about Auster, interviews with and about Auster, and public events featuring Auster. The series is represented through clippings, printed matter, correspondence, drafts, and audio and moving image recordings. Throughout the series various languages are present including English, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian Japanese, and others.
The Press and Clippings files hold printed matter and clippings of reviews and press coverage about Auster and his works. Files are arranged by date, with reviews of specific works arranged at the end.
The Interviews and Media Appearances files contain recordings and printed matter featuring interviews with Auster.
The Public Events, Speeches, and Lectures files covers public speaking events Auster conducted throughout his life. This includes public panels, academic lectures, introductions, readings, and speeches.
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1986-2021
The Works and Adaptations by Others series dates from 1986 to 2021 and holds various adaptations of works by Auster, theses and dissertations about Auster's work, and other writing, music, art, and film inspired by Auster. The series also hold works by others unrelated to Auster.
The Adaptations files hold material related to works adapted from Auster's work. This includes the graphic novel of City of Glass by Paul Karasik; the 1993 film The Music of Chance, directed by Philip Haas, starring James Spader, Mandy Patinkin, M. Emmet Walsh, and Charles Durning; and various stage adaptations of Auster's work.
Adaptations that were submitted to Auster that he rejected are held in the Rejected Screenplays files.
The Works Inspired by Auster hold files of music, poems, and art installations inspried by Auster and his work.
The Essays, Theses, and Dissertations hold various analysis written about Auster's work. The language of this material includes English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and others.
Works by Others includes early manuscripts and proofs by others that were shared with Auster. There are works present by Don DeLillo, John Ashbery, and Ron Padgett.
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1980-2006
The Awards, Photographs, and Ephemera series dates from 1980 to 2006 and contains various awards received by Auster, as well as photographs, artwork, and ephemera from throughout Auster's life.
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1968-2020
The Printed Matter series dates from 1968 to 2020 and contains books, magazines, and programs from throughout Auster's career. The printed matter includes works by Auster, contributions from Auster, reviews of Auster, press about Auster, and other material collected by Auster.
Also held here are posters advertising works by Auster and events featuring Auster.
Items of note include original copies of Auster's early writing in the Columbia Specator, New York Review of Books, and Saturday Review.