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Creator
Austen, Roger
Call number
MssCol 3608
Physical description
.8 linear feet linear feet (2 boxes)
Language
English
Preferred Citation

Roger Austen Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

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

Correspondence and writings of gay literary historian Roger Austen, author of Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America (1977), and Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard (ed. by John W. Crowley, 1991).

Biographical/historical information

Roger Austen (1935-1984) was a literary historian whose work focused on gay writers. He was the author of Playing the Game: the Homosexual Novel in America (1977), and Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard, which was unpublished at the time of his suicide. The Stoddard manuscript was later edited by Austen's friend and mentor, Syracuse University professor John W. Crowley, and published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1991. Additional biographical information and an account of Austen's friendship with Crowley can be found in Crowley's lengthy preface to Genteel Pagan.

Scope and arrangement

The Roger Austen Papers contain his correspondence with John W. Crowley, Carl Stroven, and Thomas Brumbaugh, 1977-1984, unpublished essays on D.H. Lawrence and Jack London, a short story, and manuscripts of Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard, and "Boomerang," a study of the homosexual scandal at the Newport Naval Training Station in 1919. Much of the correspondence concerns Austen's research on Stoddard and his difficulties getting his work published.

The Roger Austen papers are arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift of John W. Crowley, 1997; 2002

Processing information

Processed by Melanie A. Yolles; machine readable finding aid created by FAKER.

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