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Creator
Proulx, Annie
Call number
Berg Coll MSS 22245
Physical description
119.71 linear feet (433 boxes, 183 volumes, 1 tube, 7 folders). 4.3 gigabytes (3,989 computer files). 60 audio recordings. 20 moving image recordings
Language
Multiple languages; English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, Danish, and many other languages are represented throughout the collection.
Preferred Citation
E. Annie Proulx papers, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
Repository
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.

E. Annie Proulx (1935-) is an American author, journalist, and historian who has published eleven books, including the novels Postcards, The Shipping News, Barkskins, and the story collection Close Range. Proulx's papers date from 1839 to 2024, and detail her creative output throughout her literary career. The collection includes Proulx's research materials, writing, interviews, correspondence, and personal ephemera.

Biographical/historical information

Originally written by Anne Garner in 2014, with additional edits by Em Longan in 2025.

Edna Ann Proulx, better known by her pen name Annie Proulx, is a novelist, short fiction writer, historian, and essayist. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1935, to Lois Nellie Gill Proulx, a painter and amateur naturalist, and George N. Proulx, the vice-president of a textile mill. She is the oldest of five daughters. After briefly attending Colby College, she obtained a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Vermont in 1969. In 1973 she earned her Master of Arts from Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) and received a doctorate in history in 1975.

From 1975 to 1988 she worked as a journalist, writing about horticulture, cuisine, architecture, and wildlife for magazines such as Gourmet, Horticulture, Gray's Sporting Journal, Organic Gardening, and Country Journal. During this period she published two books, Sweet and Hard Cider (1980) and The Complete Dairy Foods Cookbook (1982) for publisher Rodale, Inc. Proulx has since requested that these early books remain out of print.

Proulx's first collection of short fiction, Heart Songs and Other Stories, was published in 1988. In 1990, she completed her debut novel, Postcards, for which she won the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Proulx was the first woman to receive this prize. Her second novel, The Shipping News, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Heartland Award for Fiction.

Accordion Crimes, Proulx's third novel, was published in 1996. In 1997, she was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature. In 1998, her story "Brokeback Mountain" won the National Magazine Award, The New Yorker Award for Fiction, and the O. Henry Prize. In 2005, it was adapted for a Paramount Pictures film written by Larry McMurtry and Dianna Ossana, and was directed by Ang Lee. Proulx also wrote a play and a libretto for an opera based on the same story.

Proulx moved to Wyoming in 1994, and the state was the inspiration for three collections of short stories. Her second collection of short fiction, Close Range: Wyoming Stories, was published in 1999; the lead story, "The Half-Skinned Steer," was selected by John Updike for the Best American Stories of the Century (1999). In 2000, Proulx's short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories won The New Yorker Award for Fiction. Her fourth novel, That Old Ace in the Hole, was published in 2002. This was followed by two collections of short stories: Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 (2004) and Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 (2008).

In 2008, Proulx published and edited Red Desert: A History of a Place, a collection of thirty-eight essays, of which she wrote ten. Bird Cloud: A Memoir, was published in 2011, and is named for the custom home she had built in Saratoga, Wyoming, on a 640-acre nature preserve through which runs the North Platte River. Proulx sold Bird Cloud in 2014 and briefly moved to Port Townsend, Washington, before settling in New Hampshire.

Proulx published Barkskins, her first novel since 2002's That Old Ace in the Hole, in 2016. She was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2017, and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2018. Barkskins was adapted into a television series by National Geographic and premiered on May 25, 2020.

Proulx published a nonfiction book, Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, in 2022.

Proulx has been married three times, and has four children: Sylvia ("Muffy"), Gillis, Jonathan, and Morgan.

Scope and arrangement

Annie Proulx's papers date from 1839 to 2023, and chronicle her career as an author, historian, and journalist. The papers document Proulx's evolution as a writer; her enduring ecological, sociological, and historical research interests; how those interests inform her work; and the publishing industry as seen from an author's perspective.

The collection is arranged into six series that cover Proulx's written works, both published and unfinished; artwork done by Proulx, friends, and family members; correspondence; research materials, including Proulx's research library; press and publicity materials; and personal materials, including genealogical research into the Proulx family.

Of particular note are the earliest drafts of works such as Postcards, The Shipping News, and "Brokeback Mountain." Drafts, galleys, correspondence, awards, travel itineraries, and written interview notes are all present.

The collection includes some born-digital drafts of works and correspondence, as well as materials related to Dead-Line Limited, Proulx's business entity. Some commercial media, including a sizable portion of Proulx's collection of albums, are included. Other audio and video recordings include interviews, radio recordings, and recorded educational materials related to Proulx's research and her works.

Materials related to Fen, Bog, and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, published in 2022, are not present in the collection.

The E. Annie Proulx papers are arranged in six series:

  • Series I: Writings
    1964-2023
    47.54 linear feet (172 boxes). 3.7 gigabytes (2,565 computer files). 6 audio recordings. 1 moving image recording

    Series I is dated from 1964 to 2023, and covers Proulx's trajectory as an author, historian, and journalist. The series illustrates her work on novels, short stories, essays, book reviews, and speech transcripts, as well as her working relationships with literary agents, editors, and translators. Novels and short story collections make up the bulk of this series.

    The series traces Proulx's work through the traditional publication process, from initial drafts to final production. Materials related to commissioned work published before 1988's Heart Songs include project proposals, book outlines, and drafts. The series also details Proulx's professional relationship with literary agents, editors, designers, translators, publicists, and other authors through multiple iterations of annotated drafts and correspondence.

  • Series II: Artwork
    1955-2009
    6.83 linear feet (26 boxes, 2 folders)

    Series II spans from 1955 to 2009, and holds sketchbooks, loose sketches and drawings, small mixed media sculptures, mail art, and assemblages done by Proulx and others.

    Proulx's artwork consists of pen or graphite sketches and watercolor paintings, mainly of landscape and people. Some portraits of Proulx are also present in this series.

    Artwork by others includes works by Proulx's mother, painter and amateur naturalist Lois Nellie Gill Proulx; her children Gillis and Morgan; two movable mixed media works by Willy Matthews inspired by Proulx's short stories "The Bunchgrass at the End of the World" and "Blood Bay;" mail art by Robert Warner, also inspired by several works by Proulx; and sample work by book artist Claire Van Vliet's press, Janus Press, for an unrealized collaborative project between Van Vliet and Proulx.

    Some artwork by Lois Gill Proulx was removed from this series and is housed with materials in Subseries V.A.

  • Series III: Correspondence
    1968-2023
    26.04 linear feet (88 boxes, 1 tube). 6.2 megabytes (538 computer files)

    The Correspondence series (1968 to 2023) chronicles Proulx's professional and personal relationships through letters, emails, postcards, holiday cards, and notes. Fan letters are also present.

    Some individuals Proulx corresponded with include Larry McMurtry, Francisco Goldman, David Plante, Nan Graham, Susan Swan, David Nash, Sydney Lea, Aidan Higgins, Ivan Doig, Skip Gorman, Tim Gautreaux, and Joel Conarroe.

  • Series IV: Research
    1839-2018
    21.25 linear feet (76 boxes, 183 volumes, 1 folder). 136.7 megabytes (104 computer files). 5 moving image recordings

    Research materials for all of Proulx's works, as well as general research files, are held in Series IV. Proulx's extensive research files include maps and guides organized by region; project files with articles organized by subject; hundreds of research photographs, many organized by place; newspaper and magazine clippings; holograph and typescript notes; research articles and essays; and copies of local, state, and federal statutes and legislature.

    Subjects include horticultural research, the history of logging and illegal logging, ecology, horticulture, extreme weather, the fishing industry, ranching, rare books and special collections, small presses, and American western vernacular. Many miscellaneous subjects are also present, including a folder of newspaper clippings and obituaries about odd and unusual deaths; research for an unrealized work about volcanoes; and Internet strangers. Original folder names have been maintained wherever possible.

    Research files for Accordion Crimes, Barkskins, Bird Cloud: A Memoir, Post Cards, Red Desert, and That Old Ace in the Hole are all present in this series.

    Proulx's 161-volume library is also held with the research materials. Many of these volumes include academic work about the cultural, geological, and ecological history of the American West, in particular Wyoming; independently published histories of cattle ranching regions and frontier settlements; cowboys; and collections of folk stories and songs. Many contain annotations by Proulx in the margins, holograph notes, bookmarks, and other inserts. Inserts have been removed from the volumes to corresponding folders.

    Additional research materials can be found in Series VI: Photographs.

  • Series V: Press and Publicity
    1969-2021
    15.42 linear feet (48 boxes, 2 folders). 8.1 megabytes (105 computer files). 11 audio recordings. 2 moving image recordings

    Series V, dated from 1969 to 2021, holds interviews, promotional materials, book design mockups and cover drafts, reviews, and works about Proulx or her work, written by others. Series V illuminates the process of moving a book through drafting to final publication from a business perspective.

  • Series VI: Personal
    1895-2023
    16.37 linear feet (60 boxes, 2 folders). 440.6 megabytes (659 computer files). 43 audio recordings. 12 moving image recordings

    Series VI dates from 1895 to 2023 and holds photographs, book contracts, royalty statements, documents related to various properties owned or rented by Proulx, and writings by Proulx's friends. Some correspondence is also present in this series. Photographs are primarily of Proulx's family, friends, and portraits of Proulx.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Purchased from E. Annie Proulx in 2009 and in 2023.

Revision History

Additions held in boxes 349-413, as well as Proulx’s library, audio and moving image recordings, electronic records, and unprocessed materials from the original acquisition processed by Em Longan in (2025.)

Processing information

The first acquisition was processed by Anne Garner in 2014. The original finding aid comprised 356 boxes and was arranged into twenty-three series. Original folder names were maintained whenever possible and are indicated by the use of double quotes. Brackets indicate assumed titles.

Additions were processed by Em Longan in 2025. Processing steps done for the original arrangement in 2014 were not replicated for the additions in 2025, such as the retention of hanging folders, separation of correspondence from their original envelopes, naming and organization schema, and copying all pieces of correspondence. The arrangement was reworked to reduce the number of series, description was updated, and new subject headings were created.

Using the collection

Location

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 320

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright in the E. Annie Proulx papers is held by E. Annie Proulx or her designated agent. Please contact the curator of the Berg Collection of English and American Literature, for further information.

Access restrictions

Inquiries regarding audio and moving image materials in the collection may be directed to the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature (berg@nypl.org). Audio and moving image materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.