- Creator
- Thompson, Ralph, 1904-1979
- Call number
- MssCol 2981
- Physical description
- .6 linear feet (2 boxes)
- Language
- Materials in English
- Preferred Citation
Ralph Thompson papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Manuscripts and Archives Division
- Access to materials
- Request an in-person research appointment.
Ralph Thompson (1904-1979) was an American author, teacher and editor. He was a book critic at the New York Times and a contributing editor at Time Magazine, wrote reference works and translations, and was editor of the Book-of-the-Month Club from 1951 until 1975. Collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and printed matter relating to Thompson's work. Bulk of the correspondence consists of letters to Thompson mainly from authors and readers of his reviews while he was a book columnist at the New York Times. Also, original manuscripts by Thompson and others, pamphlets on literary works, and photographs of a mountain-climbing expedition to Mount Everest.
Biographical/historical information
Ralph Thompson was an American book critic, editor and writer. He was born on November 11, 1904 in West Orange, New Jersey and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1925. Thompson entered journalism in 1932 as an associate editor of Current History which was published by the New York Times. From 1936 to 1942, he wrote the Book of the Times column which he ceased to write in order to serve in the army intelligence unit during the war. He became contributing editor for Time Magazine in 1946 and resumed his book criticism in 1948. Thompson went to England in 1949 as a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Sheffield. Thompson authored the American Literary Annuals and Gift Books (l936), and translated Uhde: Five Primitive Masters (1948). He died of cancer on November 12, 1979 at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
The collection consists largely of letters to him by friends, authors, fellow journalists and the general public in response to his reviews. Correspondents include H. L. Mencken (l934-1948), Ezra Pound ("Anno XII"), Hamlin Garland (l939 & undated), Sean O'Casey (1948-1950), Ernest Hemingway (l949), James T. Farrell (1939-1949), Theodore Dreiser (1930), V. F. Calverton (1936-1939), A. Kerensky (l927), A. A. Knopf (1936-1948), F. La Guardia (l929), Carl Sandburg (1937) and William Saroyan (1934 & 1937). There are also unidentified letters (1932-1957) as well as original manuscripts by Harold J. Laski, G. L. Mallory and by Thompson himself. An electrostatic copy in typescript of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is present with numerous pamphlets on the literary works of John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck and others. There are a few photographs of a mountain climbing expedition to the top of Mount Everest.
Administrative information
Source of acquisition
December 10, 1968, Received from Ralph Thompson (Gift)
Processing information
Accessioned by Anastacio N. Teodoro III, April 19, 1985
Key terms
Names
- Calverton, V. F. (Victor Francis), 1900-1940
- Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945
- Farrell, James T. (James Thomas), 1904-1979
- Garland, Hamlin, 1860-1940
- Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961
- Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970
- Knopf, Alfred A., 1892-1984
- La Guardia, Fiorello H. (Fiorello Henry), 1882-1947
- Laski, Harold Joseph, 1893-1950
- Mallory, G. L
- Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956
- O'Casey, Sean, 1880-1964
- Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972
- Sandburg, Carl, 1878-1967
- Saroyan, William, 1908-1981
- Thompson, Ralph, 1904-1979
Subjects
Places
Occupations
Material types
Using the collection
Location
Manuscripts and Archives DivisionStephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328