J. Michael Lennon’s collection of Norman Mailer’s Publication Research, 1948-2024

Collection

Identifier: 50-05-005

Staff Only

Scope and Content

J. Michael Lennon’s collection of Norman Mailer’s Publication Research, 1948-2024, is arranged into eight series: Series I: Publications, 1948-2024; Series II: Speeches and Interviews, 1962-2006; Series III: Unpublished Works, c. 1945-2004; Series IV: Family and Peer Publications, 1978-2007; Series V: Correspondences, 1947-2007; Series VI: Norman Mailer’s Legacy, 1970-2023; Series VII: Personal papers and photographs, c. 1948-2011; and Series VIII: Objects, c. 1990s - c. 2005. Each series is further divided into corresponding subseries and subsubseries to aid in the research process.

The collection contains a wide range of materials from Norman Mailer’s writing process such as draft typescripts (short publications and novel length); handwritten draft pages; film typescript; notebooks and notepads; novel dictation (recording and typescript); galley copy typescript; galley copy color plates; research books; periodicals; and online publications (original and xerox/fax copy); handwritten notes; edits; and highlights; research notecards; research post-it notes; unused research; non-specified research; file folder compilations of research; publication legal contracts and typescript (signed and unsigned); book publication cover creations; editorial comments; book publications; publication press; book reviews; interviews; print periodical publications; online publications; best seller lists; speech typescript; lecture materials and research; unpublished draft typescript; original and xerox copy artwork; artwork in art pads; bound sketchbook collections; email correspondences; letter correspondences; handwritten correspondences; birthday cards; postcards; greeting cards; thank you notes; fan mail; request letters; legal letters; pamphlets; fliers; informational typescript; booklets; brochures; health booklets; medical paperwork; phone logs; film reel; sound reel; promotional adverts; membership cards; certificates; floppy discs; CDs; videocassettes; photographs; color transparencies; selling aid typescript; print press release; invitations; travel arrangement receipts; educational typescript; floor plans; credit cards; membership cards; business cars; maps; rubles; playing cards; pocket book; letterhead and envelopes; postcards; comic pages; book slip covers; schedules; paperweights; glass objects; wooden objects; metal objects; and posters.

The collection provides insight on Norman Mailer’s research and drafting process, publication history, and literary legacy spanning the arc of his career from 1948-2007, as well as posthumous acclaim up to 2024. The collection also provides insight on Mailer’s personal relationships both professionally and personally, along with the writing careers of family members and peers.

Dates

1948-2024

Creator

Mailer, Norman, 1923-2007 (Person)

Access:

Open for research, with the exception of restricted folders 73.7., 73.8.; 73.9.; 74.4.; 74.5.; 74.6.; 74.7.; 74.8.; 74.9.; 74.10.; 74.11.; 74.12.; 74.13.; 74.14.; 75.14.; 76.7.; 76.8.; 77.31.; 80.8.; 81.11.; 82.1.; 82.5.; 84.8.

Specific folders within this collection have been digitized for research purposes only. If you wish to reprint unpublished materials within the collection, you must first obtain permission from the Mailer Estate. Please contact the Wilkes University Archives for more information.

Biographical Sketch of Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was born January 31, 1923 in Long Beach, New Jersey to Jewish immigrants Isaac Barnett “Barney” Mailer and Fanny “Fan” Mailer (née Schneider). Before the age of six and after the birth of Norman’s younger sister Barbara, Mailer and his family moved to Brooklyn, where he spent the majority of his youth in middle class neighborhoods.

With his mother’s encouragement, Mailer began writing stories as early as seven or eight. Mailer made note of this on his application to Harvard University and began his studies at the school in 1939 at the age of sixteen. He majored in engineering sciences, but followed his passion for writing with electives. Mailer studied English under Robert Gorham Davis, Robert Hillyer, and Theodore Morrison. He was a member of Harvard’s Signet Society, and worked on the Harvard Advocate. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, Mailer published his first story, “The Greatest Thing in the World,” after winning Story Magazine’s college contest.

Mailer graduated from Harvard in 1943. In January 1944, he married his college girlfriend and first wife Beatrice “Bea” Silverman. That same year, Mailer was drafted into the U.S. Army, despite efforts to defer his draft for his blossoming literary career. Following combat experience in the Gen. MacArthur’s campaign in the Philippines, Mailer was stationed in Japan after the Japanese surrender in 1945, and was promoted to sergeant. He served in Japan as a first cook until his discharge in April 1946.

Mailer wrote to Bea almost daily while serving in the army, his letters and experience building the basis for his acclaimed war novel The Naked and The Dead. Published in 1948, The Naked and the Dead sold 200,000 copies in its first three months, and remained on the New York Times best seller list for 62 weeks, garnering great literary and financial success for Mailer.

In the early 1950s, Mailer and Bea separated. Following their separation and divorce in 1952, Mailer lived with his soon-to-be second wife Adele Morales. Mailer published his second novel, Barbary Shore (1951), and third novel, The Deer Park (1955). At this time, Mailer started to write outside the novel format. Mailer’s journalistic endeavors covered a range of topics: race, feminism, sexuality, politics, technology, culture, and arts. The resurgence of Mailer’s career came with a cost to his personal life. At a party in November 1960, Mailer stabbed his wife Adele twice with a penknife, nearly killing her. Though Adele refused to press charges, Mailer received court probation and the couple divorced in 1962. The incident has been a focal point for feminist critique on Mailer’s name and work. Following the incident, Mailer worked to rebuild his personal life and literary career. He published a collection of poetry, Death for the Ladies (And Other Disasters) (1962). His fourth novel, An American Dream (1965), first serialized in Esquire, sparked a resurgence of the serialized novel.

At the time, Mailer’s nonfiction brought him recognition as part of the personalized creative nonfiction of the “New Journalism” of the 1960s and 1970s. Mailer produced a variety of works with a focus on politics, race relations, feminism, technology, and boxing, including Cannibals and Christians (1966), The Armies of the Night (1968), Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), Of a Fire on the Moon (1971), The Prisoner of Sex (1972), and The Fight (1975). Miami,Fire, and Prisoner were finalists for the National Book Award. His narrative of the 1967 March on the Pentagon Vietnam War protest, The Armies of the Night, was awarded both the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Mailer’s nonfiction novel on Gary Gilmore’s crimes and execution, The Executioner’s Song (1979), won a Pulitzer Prize as well.

In addition to his work in fiction and nonfiction, Mailer wrote for the stage, film, and other creative outlets. In the late 1960s, he wrote and produced an off-Broadway play version of The Deer Park (1967), and directed three experimental films: Wild 90 (1968), Beyond the Law (1968), and Maidstone (1970). His interest in film as a medium extended to further adaptations of his work. In 1982, Mailer collaborated with Lawrence Schiller on the television adaptation of The Executioner’s Song. In 1987, he adapted and directed the film version of his novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance. Mailer enjoyed drawing later in his life and published some of his art in Modest Gifts (2003), along with his poetry. Mailer also continued to write fiction, including best-selling novels such as Why are We in Vietnam? (1967), Ancient Evenings (1983), Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1984), and Harlot’s Ghost (1991). Receiving Mailer’s best reviews since Executioner’s Song, Harlot’s Ghost explored the world of the CIA from World War II until 1965. He ended the novel with the words, “To be continued,” with plans to write a sequel (HGII), to be titled Harlot’s Grave, but time and other writing commitments left the sequel unwritten. Mailer also wrote several biographies. His biographer, J. Michael Lennon, has explained that Mailer used “himself as a species of divining rod to explore the psychic depths" of disparate personalities such as Marilyn Monroe in Marilyn: A Biography (1973), Pablo Picasso in The Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man (1995), and Jesus Christ in The Gospel According to the Son (1997). Mailer’s research on JFK’s assassination for Harlot’s Grave found purpose in Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery (1995).

Politics played a big part in Mailer's career, including a failed run for New York City mayor in 1969. With a critical lens on war, Mailer contributed to the conversations surrounding the Bush administration and the Iraq war with essays such as “Immodest Proposals” (Playboy, 2004) and “America and its war with the invisible kingdom of Satan” (The Times UK, 2005). In 1980, Mailer entered into his sixth and final marriage, with artist and actress, Norris Church Mailer. Mailer’s marriage to Norris initiated family collaborations within Mailer’s career. Norris’s Baptist faith contributed to The Gospel According to the Son (1995). She provided valuable assistance on matters of Christian belief and the New Testament. Norris and Norman’s son, John Buffalo Mailer, also worked with his father, conducting interviews with him for Playboy (2004), among other outlets, as well as co-writing The Big Empty (2006), a collection of conversations. Mailer was also involved in the filmmaking career of Michael Mailer, who has produced and/or directed more than two dozen films, including works such as The Money Shot (1996). Mailer’s final novel, The Castle in the Forest (2007), tells the story of Adolf Hitler as a child seen through the eyes of Deiter, a demon sent to assist Hitler on his destructive path. The book, published in January 2007, was Mailer’s 11th best seller, and received great praise. Mailer died in New York City on November 10, 2007. For more detailed information on his personal life, biography, and works, please consult the following resources: Begiebing, Robert, Mailer at 100. LSU Press, 2023. Bozung, Justin, editor. The Films of Norman Mailer. Bloomsbury, 2017. Lennon, J. Michael. Norman Mailer: A Double Life. Simon & Schuster, 2013. Lennon, J. Michael and Donna Pedro Lennon, and Gerald R. Lucas. Norman Mailer: Works and Days, The Norman Mailer Society, 2018. Lennon, J. Michael, Editor. Selected Letters of Norman Mailer. Random House, 2014 Lennon, J. Michael, Lucas, Gerald R. and Mailer, Susan, editors. Lipton’s: Mailer’s Marijuana Journal, 1954-55. Arcade Books, 2024. Lennon, J. Michael, and Mailer, John Buffalo. Norman Mailer: A Mysterious Country: The Grace and Fragility of American Democracy, Arcade Books, 2023. McKinley, Maggie, editor. Mailer in Context. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Sipiora, Phillip. Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays [of Norman Mailer] , Random House, 2013.

Extent

94 boxes ( (85 letter size boxes; 4 legal boxes; 2 object boxes; 3 oversized boxes))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Provenance:

These materials were donated to Wilkes University in Summer 2019 by J. Michael Lennon and additional materials were donated to the archives in June 2021 and Summer through Fall 2023. Many of these materials were transferred from The Norman Mailer Center to the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center storage rooms in Summer 2018. These materials were then transferred to Farley library in Summer through Fall 2019.

Additional Mailer manuscripts were donated by Lawrence Schiller in December 2023.

Acquisition:

Half of these materials were donated from The Norman Mailer Center in Summer 2018. The other half of the materials were donated to Wilkes University in Summer 2019 by J. Michael Lennon. Additional materials were donated to the archives in June 2021 and Summer through Fall 2023 by Mike Lennon and Larry Schiller.

Copright:

Copyright of materials belongs to either Norman Mailer, J. Michael Lennon, or the Mailer family. Copyright of published materials belong to the publisher.

Copyright Statement for all Digitized Materials

Specific folders within this collection have been digitized for research purposes only. If you wish to reprint unpublished materials within the collection, you must first obtain permission from the Mailer Estate. Please contact the Wilkes University Archives for more information.

Harmful Language Note in Digitized Materials

This collection contains materials with antiquated, harmful and derogatory language regarding racism, homophobia, and misogyny. This language is a product of the time it was written in and does not reflect the views of Wilkes University or the Eugene S. Farley Library. Please use your discretion in viewing the digitized materials.

Digital Copy of Norman Mailer's appearances and events

Attached to this finding aid under the 'Digital Material' section will be an excel spreadsheet featuring a list of Norman Mailer's appearances and events, from the 1940s to 2007 (2008 canceled events due to Mailer's passing).

Processed By:

Juliana Lueders, Archives Work-Study, Fall 2020-Fall 2021, Cass Heid, Archives Work-Study, Spring 2022, Victoria Rendina, Archives Work-Study, Spring-Fall 2023, edited and supervised by Suzanna Calev, Archivist, 2020-2023.