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Creator
Didion, Joan
Call number
MssCol 186276
Physical description
146.68 linear feet (336 boxes, 5 oversize folders, 1 tube). 9.8 megabytes (201 computer files). 52 audio recordings. 19 video recordings
Language
Multiple languages; Primarily in English, but contains some material in Spanish.
Preferred Citation

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library

Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply

Joan Didion (1934-2021) and John Gregory Dunne (1932-2003) were writers closely associated with the New Journalism movement who wrote novels, essays, long-form nonfiction, and screenplays. Didion and Dunne's papers date from the 1840s through 2022 (bulk dates 1950s-2010s) and chronicle their literary and screenwriting careers through correspondence, publishing files, notes for writing projects, photographs, and research files. The papers also include objects from their home lives, certificates and awards, personal and family ephemera, and artwork.

Biographical/historical information

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were American writers who lived and worked together in a personal and professional partnership from the late 1950s until 2003. During this time, Didion and Dunne became known for fiction and nonfiction writing. They shared feedback and research materials throughout their careers. In addition to writing fiction and nonfiction, Didion and Dunne collaborated on screenplays, television scripts, and treatments.

Joan Didion (1934-2021) was an American writer of novels, journalistic articles, screenplays, and memoirs. She was born to Eduene (née Jerrett) and Frank Reese Didion in Sacramento, California. In high school, Didion worked on the student newspaper and went on to write for the campus literary journal while attending the University of California at Berkeley in the 1950s. During her senior year, Didion received the "Prix de Paris" award from Vogue magazine and was awarded a trip to New York City to work on an issue of the magazine. Didion was ultimately hired as an associate features editor for Vogue, and several of her pieces that appeared in the magazine were later republished in her essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968).

John Gregory Dunne (1932-2003) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and journalist. He was the fifth of six children born to Dorothy Frances (née Burns) and Richard Edwin Dunne in Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Portsmouth Priory School in Rhode Island in 1950 and from Princeton University in 1954. After serving in the Army Reserve for four years, Dunne moved to New York City, working at an advertising agency and as a journalist at Time.

In the late 1950s, Didion and Dunne met through their mutual friend, Noel Parmentel, a writer for The National Review, where Didion had begun writing essays and reviews. In 1961, Dunne's first freelance piece "Men and Manners: From Steerage to Suburbia" was published in the National Review. During this time, Didion started work on her first novel, Run, River (1963), and shared her early drafts with Dunne, marking the start of their collaborative literary relationship. The pair developed a romantic relationship and married in January 1964.

Didion and Dunne left New York City shortly after their marriage and relocated to Southern California. In 1966, the couple adopted a daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne (1966-2005). While Didion and Dunne wrote their novels and journalism independently, they often edited, revised, and gave feedback on each other's work. In the 1960s, they shared the by-line for a regular column called "Points West" for The Saturday Evening Post.

Didion continued to write for Vogue until the publication of Slouching Towards Bethlehem in 1968. A descendant of generations of Californians, Didion's early work often explored California's culture, contradictions, and myths about Californian identity. These were central themes of her second book of nonfiction essays, The White Album (1979).

After moving to California, Didion and Dunne worked together in the film industry, where they wrote, revised, and polished screenplays. The couple collaborated on several produced and many more unproduced screenplays and television scripts for major Hollywood studios and broadcasting companies. Dunne's older brother, Dominick Dunne, formed a film company with the couple called Dunne-Didion-Dunne in the early 1970s. Dominick Dunne produced their screenplay The Panic in Needle Park (1971) and the Didion-adapted book Play It As It Lays in 1972. Didion and Dunne wrote early drafts of A Star is Born (1976), and later, the screenplay for Up Close Personal (1996).

Beginning in the late 1970s, Dunne frequently contributed to The New York Review of Books and Esquire, reviwing books and writing long-form nonfiction essays. Dunne often investigated crime, criminal trials, patriotism and war, small-town culture, Irish Catholicism, Los Angeles, social class, and the Hollywood film industry in his journalism and books. Dunne's novels include Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season (1974) and True Confessions (1977). His non-fiction books include Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike (1967) The Studio (1969), Harp (1989), and Monster: Living Off the Big Screen (1997).

In the 1980s, Didion wrote several long-form essays and novels about conflicts in El Salvador as well as the racial and social dynamics of Cuban exiles in Miami (1987). In the 1980s and 1990s, New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers encouraged Didion to start covering American presidential campaigns. Didion remained interested in politics, but returned to a more self-relective form of journalism with her 2003 book of essays, Where I Was From (2003).

In December 2003, Quintana Roo Dunne was admitted to the hospital and induced into a coma after flu symptoms developed into septic shock. A week later, John Dunne suffered a heart attack and died at home. Quintana Roo Dunne died on August 26, 2005. Didion explored the experience of grieving her husband and daughter in two memoirs: The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) and Blue Nights (2011).

Dunne's posthumous novel, Nothing Lost, was published in 2004. Didion published a collection of essays in 2021 titled Let Me Tell You What I Mean. She died due to complications from Parkinson's Disease on December 23, 2021, in New York City.

Scope and arrangement

The Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne papers date from the 1840s to 2022 (bulk dates 1950s-2010s) and trace the entirety of both writers' careers. The papers illustrate the intersections of their fiction and nonfiction works with their personal lives. The collection is arranged into six series that cover Didion and Dunne's individual published works, their collaborative film and television projects, personal files, and domestic and international editions of their books.

The papers consist mainly of each writer's professional working files including books, journalistic work, research, events they attended, and awards. A significant portion of the collection also covers Didion and Dunne's collaborative writing and editing, as well as their work writing and polishing screenplays for film and television.

Personal materials in the collection include photographs, correspondence, and ephemera from the couple and their immediate and extended families. These files address their early lives, as well as their marriage, the adoption of their daughter, and their social lives.

The collection also contains the legal files of Didion and Dunne's lawyer, Morton L. Leavy, which include several publishing and screenwriting contracts, as well as other case files.

The Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne papers are arranged in six series:

  • Series I: Joan Didion Dunne
    1894-2022
    46 audio recordings. 1 video recording. 51.71 linear feet (128 boxes)

    Series I covers Joan Didion's entire career as a professional writer, from her first essays in 1955 through editions of her work published in 2022. The series is arranged into five subseries encompassing Didion's Publishing; Journalism; Research; Events, Lectures and Teaching; and Awards and Accolades.

    Didion and John Dunne worked very closely together throughout their careers, and Dunne's notes are often present in drafts of Didion's writing. Didion's published works and journalism also overlap, as reportage was frequently republished in books of essays or as a detail in a novel. Didion's interests can be observed through her subject files where topics reflect common themes in her writing.

    Didion frequently participated in events to promote her work, including lectures and teaching. Various speeches and scripts from readings given at libraries, universities, and other intellectual spaces are present, as well as many of the medals, statuettes, and certificates awarded to Didion throughout her career. Some personal materials are present, especially preparations for her later memoirs about the sudden deaths of Dunne in 2003 and Quintana Roo Dunne in 2005.

  • Series II: John Gregory Dunne
    1943-2010
    2.9 megabytes (86 computer files). 4 audio recordings. 5 video recordings. 30.92 linear feet (74 boxes)

    The John Gregory Dunne series dates from 1943 to 2010 and contains files of his professional work, research, speaking engagements, and honorary awards and degrees. The series is arranged into five subseries: Books; Journalism; Research; Events and Lectures; and Awards and Accolades.

    The series illustrates Dunne's interests in Catholicism, Irish heritage, crime, social class, Los Angeles, and the film industry. While the series holds some of Dunne's journalism from the 1960s, most of the materials detail his professional work from the 1970s until 2003. The Books subseries and the Journalism subseries both offer insight into Dunne's publication process through notes, manuscript drafts, galleys, proofs, correspondence, itineraries, and research materials. The Research subseries details Dunne's working subject files and reflects his interests and unpublished projects. The Events and Lectures subseries holds speeches that reveal Dunne's views on journalism and writing as a profession.

    Dunne often photocopied notes and research, and retained copies across various projects. Thus, some research materials appear in more than one subseries.

    Be advised that Dunne's notes, manuscript drafts, and research clippings include harmful and offensive words.

  • Series III: Film and Television Projects
    1960s-2012
    19.08 linear feet (47 boxes). 6.9 megabytes (115 computer files). 2 audio recordings. 13 video recordings

    Film and Television Projects covers Didion and Dunne's screenwriting work. The series holds screenplay and script drafts (often with interfiled notes), rewrites, and polishes; research materials; dailies and wrap party video recordings; correspondence; notes; plot outlines; and character breakdowns created and compiled by Didion and Dunne from the 1960s to 2012.

    Film projects constitute the bulk of the series, which includes both produced and unproduced projects. Didion and Dunne maintained files from various producers, screenwriters, and agencies who contacted the couple to determine their interest in, and sometimes advice about, a project. Also present are items related to an unproduced television show The City.

    The subseries also details Didion and Dunne's working relationship with the producer Scott Rudin and director Jon Avnet. This is evident through meeting notes, correspondence, plot outlines, and screenplay drafts from Up Close Personal, Before You Go (unproduced), Untitled Tom Dooley/Dr. America Project (unproduced) and Red Corner (1997).

    Some film projects in this series are interconnected with titles from Didion and Dunne's Books and Journalism subseries. Dunne's novel Playland (1994) was based on Didion and Dunne's unproduced screenplay of the same name. Likewise, some of Didion's research files created for Miami (1987) reappear as background research for The Ice Queen screenplay. Additionally, there are screenplay adaptations of Didion and Dunne's books. Some of their adaptations were not produced or were produced after their deaths.

    Contracts for each project can be found in Series V: Morton L. Leavy Legal Files.

    Be advised that some of Didion and Dunne's notes in the Zone of Silence UFO project include words that can be harmful and offensive.

  • Series IV: Personal
    1840s-2021
    25.08 linear feet (64 boxes, 5 oversize folders, 1 tube)

    Series IV dates from the 1840s to 2021, and holds personal items from Didion and Dunne's early lives, immediate and extended families, their married life, and their daughter, Quintanna Roo Dunne. The series includes calendars, notebooks, correspondence, education files, content related to entertaining, photography, and artwork.

    The calendars and datebooks span from 1964 to 2013, with those from 1964 to 1970 containing the most detail. In these earlier datebooks Didion and Dunne tracked their daily schedules and finances, including their invitations, appointments, phone call notes, dinner menus and guest lists, personal earnings and expenses, and other ephemera. Datebooks from 1971 to 1996 focus more exclusively on Didion and Dunne's expenses and appointments. In Didion's datebooks, she also noted films she watched and reviewed for Vogue, as well as instances of migraines. Datebooks from 1997 through 2013 only contain financial information.

    Didion was an avid notekeeper and retained notebooks containing personal information, story ideas, and medical notes. Didion's notebooks cover most of her career, from the 1960s through 2009, and address her international travel with the United States International Communication Agency, as well as her work on True Confessions and Where I Was From.

    The series holds a large run of personal correspondence dating from 1940 until 2021, which are mostly Didion family correspondence and condolence notes sent after the death of John Gregory Dunne in 2003 and Quintana Roo Dunne in 2005. The Didion family correspondence is mostly between Didion and her mother, father, and brother. Also present are letters written by John Dunne to various companies in which he airs his grievances about their services.

    Education and Early life files comprise Didion and Dunne's juvenilia from the 1930s through the 1960s. Didion's files contain her baby book and early schoolwork, including her work while studying at Berkeley before moving to New York City. Dunne's files contain his early writing in school literary magazines and his schoolwork while studying at Princeton. There are also some memorabilia files held here that contain items from the couple's life together.

    Family files hold Didion and Dunne ancestral histories and materials related to Quintana Roo Dunne. Bibles and other religious books, photographs, and transcripts of Didion's ancestors' journals from the 1840s and 1850s comprise the Didion family files. Dunne's family files hold correspondence (primarily with his mother), clippings, and photographs. Dunne also kept clipping files associated with the murder of his niece, Dominique Dunne, in 1982.

    The series also contains paperwork related to Quintana Roo Dunne's adoption and transfer to Barnard College. She also created a scrapbook of photographs that reflects her life as a young child in the 1960s through adulthood in 2002. Planning documents for Quintana's wedding held in 2003 are also present.

    Didion and Dunne were avid entertainers, and the series details both their dinner parties and household projects. Content related to the couple's parties include decorations, guestlists, menus, cookbooks, and recipes.

    Also present are photographs and artwork from the 1860s through the 2010s, which includes family photographs and professional portraits. Quintana Roo Dunne was a professional photographer and often took Didion and Dunne's author photographs. A selection of artwork and pictures are grouped together because they hung in Didion and Dunne's Manhattan home, and are arranged according to their noted room location.

    Be advised that some of Dunne's correspondence includes words that can be harmful and offensive.

  • Series V: Morton L. Leavy Legal Files
    1961-2000
    8.33 linear feet (20 boxes)

    Series V, dating from 1961 to 2000, contains legal files related to Didion and Dunne's careers created by their lawyer, Morton L. Leavy. The files are kept as Didion and Dunne received them after Leavy's retirement.

    Files include agreements, contracts, and correspondence between Didion, Dunne, Leavy and various companies and individuals. Leavy worked with Didion and Dunne's literary agents, as well as producers and film studios.

    Leavy assigned case numbers to each file (#02002 followed by a three-digit number), which are retained in a general note in the container list.

  • Series VI: Printed Editions
    1963-2022
    16.0 linear feet (16 boxes)

    This series holds copies of domestic and international editions of all of Didion and Dunne's published books. Didion and Dunne's books are filed separately and arranged by title. International editions are noted in the container list when present.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Purchased from the estate of Joan Didion in 2023.

Processing information

Processed by Emily P. Dunne and Amy Lau in 2024.

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Access restrictions

Boxes 297, 310, 313, 317, 319, 320, 323-331, and 336 require curatorial approval. Boxes 332-335 are restricted until 2050.