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Francis de Miomandre.
Theophanie.


University of Miami. Special Collections Division, Otto G. Richter Library. Coral Gables, Florida.

The University of Miami, founded in 1926, stands as the largest private research university in the region. The Otto G. Richter Library houses the core of the University's research collections, including the holdings of the Special Collections Division Department.

The Special Collections Division Department maintains an outstanding array of scholarly resources including collections of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, architectural drawings, prints, broadsides, posters, audio-visual materials, newspapers and journals, and other research materials. The Department contains approximately 35,000 rare and special books, 400 manuscript collections (representing 5,000 linear feet of materials), 50,000 photographs, 5,000 maps, 2,000 architectural drawings, and 1,500 linear feet of University records. The Department is recognized for its extensive holdings relating to the history, culture, and literature of Florida, Cuba and the Cuban Exile experience, and the Caribbean. The Department also has strong holdings in American and English history, literature and natural history.

Pan American World Airways, Inc. Records. The corporate records of "Pan Am," the first international airline in the United States, include correspondence, memoranda, reports, photographs, speeches, publications, scrapbooks, clippings, recordings, and other materials from 1927 to 1991.

In the collection is a twelve page report written by aviator Charles A. Lindbergh to Juan Trippe, founder and first president of Pan American World Airways, Inc., on September 15, 1933. This document was the first draft of a formal report submitted upon Lindbergh's return to the United States. The famous pilot comments in great detail on progress for mapping transatlantic air passenger routes:

In establishing a transatlantic air route it is fully as important to decide which route will be most advantageous in the future as it is to decide which is the best to operate over today... It has always been my belief that with every advance in aviation the air route will tend to follow more closely the great circle course between the localities they serve. I believe that in the future aircraft will detour bad weather areas by flying above them rather than around them.

Lindbergh elaborates further on potential air routes and also reports on airplane and communication equipment needs.

Planes used on a northern transatlantic route must have reliability, plenty of range and high speed. It is essential to eliminate the possibility of forced landings due to engine failure. A great deal of flying would have to be done over low fog covering rough ice and probably over storm areas... I believe that a northern transatlantic regular service should not be contemplated with planes which are not capable of flying nonstop from the western side of the Greenland ice cap to Iceland if necessary... It is not possible for me to overemphasize the necessity of a sufficient number of radio stations on a northern route to give reliable weather information and to give bearings.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas. The Everglades: River of Grass. New York: Rinehart, 1947. First edition, carbon typescript and galley proofs.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author and environmental activist, is the author of River of Grass, the first scholarly treatise of the Everglades as a unique environmental ecosystem. This landmark book marks the beginning of her work devoted to the preservation and restoration of the Everglades. Ms. Douglas, at the age of 104, and her supporters, continue that work today. Most recently the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, honored Ms. Douglas for her lifetime of work, with the U.S. Medal of Honor, the highest award offered to a United States citizen.

The carbon typescript and page proofs presented here form part of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Papers. The first words of the book, "There are no other Everglades in the world," explain with excruciating simplicity and clarity the driving motivation that fueled Marjory Stoneman Douglas through decades of political, educational, literary, and social activity to save a wondrous environmental treasure.

Lydia Cabrera Collection. Lydia Cabrera was in born in Havana, Cuba, on May 20, 1899, and died in Miami on September 19, 1991. She was the daughter of the prominent Cuban intellectual, Raimundo Cabrera. Her interest in Afro-Cuban culture began when Cabrera left Cuba for Paris in 1927 to study Asian religion and art. She recognized and publicized the richness of Cuban culture. Cabrera returned to Cuba in 1938. In the following years she wrote twenty-three books on Afro-Cuban themes. Cabrera’s most famous work is Cuentos Negros de Cuba, translated into French by Francis de Miomandre from the original Spanish manuscript and first published in France in 1936. Her stories and tales have appeared in journals in France and Cuba and several books have been translated into French, Portuguese, and English.

In 1960 Cabrera left Cuba and fled to exile in Madrid and later, Miami. She received honorary degrees from Denison University; Redlands University; Manhattan College; Florida International University; and the University of Miami. Lydia Cabrera made valuable contributions in the areas of literature, anthropology, and ethnology. Her works explore the rich folklore of Cuban blacks.

Francis de Miomandre. Theophanie. Compose et Manvscript par Gvido Colvcci. Illvstre d’Images par Lidia Cabrera a l’Enseigne de "La Trireme" a Paris,MCMXXIII.[sic]. Manuscript with drawings.

One of the most important items in the Lydia Cabrera Collection is the unpublished manuscript Theophanie, written by Francis de Miomandre. De Miomandre was the pseudonym of François Durand, the French critic and an important literary figure in twentieth century France. De Miomandre and Lydia Cabrera met when she was in Paris. Cabrera illustrated the manuscript and the calligraphy was by Guido Calucci who also wrote Andre Gidé’s Le Traité du Narcisse in 1933. Theophanie was exhibited at the Galerie Myrbord in Paris in 1933. Theophanie is the story of a man in search of "Teofani: Kings own cigarettes" and is set in Paris in the 1930s. The illustrations and the title reflect the Hellenic flavor of the theme.

Ezra Pound to Clark M. Emery, February 9, 1953.

Ezra Pound.

Typed letter, signed, 3 pages, with annotations. Mailed to Clark M. Emery, February 9, 1953. From the Clark Mixon Emery Papers.

Ezra Pound, one of America’s great modern poets, and Clark Mixon Emery, a member of the University of Miami English Department from 1947-1975, formed a regular correspondence that began in the early 1950s. The Emery Papers, include fifteen letters and six postcards from Pound to Emery. Emery’s contribution to this exchange of letters is housed in the Ezra Pound Collection at Yale University’s Beinecke Library.

Emery began a comprehensive study of Pound’s monumental work, The Cantos, during the early 1950s and his correspondence with Pound grew from this project. Letters date from September 1951, and conclude in 1961. During this period the two men discussed such wide ranging subjects as Emery’s writing and teaching, Pound’s own political, social and economic beliefs and other poets. Emery visited Pound in Washington, D.C., even bringing a busload of University of Miami students on one occasion.

Pound was quite forthright in his comments and observations, particularly with regard to Emery’s analysis of his work. Emery’s work on The Cantos eventually evolved into a more focused study, Ideas Into Action, A Study of Pound’s Cantos, published by the University of Miami Press in 1958. In the letter presented here, Pound offers Emery encouragement following a publisher’s rejection: "Sould [sic] be published/" my dear Emery . [sic] if the vermin controlling PUBLISHING wd/ever do what I tell ‘em." Pound also provides clarification of facts without attempting to influence the work, noting that "the author [Pound] cannot ask the critic to say things. The critic’s work must remain the portrait of the critic. [sic] not retouched."

The letters are, of course, reflective of Pound’s disjointed, rapid-fire method of letter writing, with punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure left for the reader to comprehend. No doubt emboldened by these letters and the personal relationship that developed, Emery developed a small but determined group of "Poundophiles" at the University of Miami. Among the poets and literary figures influenced by the Emery-Pound connection were Ronald Perry, Laurence Donovan, and Donald Justice.