Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm77047084
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Janet Flanner and Solita Solano, journalists, writers, and literary editors, were given to the Library of Congress by Flanner, Solano, and others between 1967 and 1977.
The papers of Janet Flanner and Solita Solano were processed in 1984 by Mary M. Wolfskill. The finding aid was revised in 1999 and again in 2003 by Patrick Kerwin.
Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Books and other printed matter have been transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Photographs, a poster, and a portrait have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division, and an inventory of this material is available in their finding aid. Sound recordings have been transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. All transfers are identified in these divisions as part of the Janet Flanner and Solita Solano Papers.
Copyright in the unpublished writings of Janet Flanner and Solita Solano in these papers has been dedicated to the public.
The papers of Janet Flanner and Solita Solano are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
A microfilm edition of part of these papers is available on two reels. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan. To promote preservation of the originals, researchers are required to consult the microfilm edition as available.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Janet Flanner and Solita Solano Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Janet Flanner (1892-1975) and her companion, Solita Solano (1888-1975), span the years circa 1870-1976, although the bulk of the material is concentrated in the last two decades of that period. The collection, which reflects Flanner's and Solano's personal lives as well as professional careers as journalists, writers, and literary editors, includes correspondence, writings, clippings, and other items arranged in various series.
In the General Correspondence series are many letters of a personal nature from close friends, primarily other authors sharing personal tribulations, the struggle toward production of literary works, and the evaluation of the creative efforts of others. Noteworthy among the correspondents are Margaret Anderson, Djuna Barnes, Sybille Bedford, Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Kay Boyle, Nancy Cunard, and Daphné Fielding. Some of the letters also discuss friends and associates such as Ernest Hemingway, George Moore, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. Many are from people in their late years reflecting on the problems of old age and on the final illnesses of Margaret Anderson, Karen Blixen, Dorothy Caruso, Georgette Leblanc.
The Subject File consists primarily of printed matter but also includes various letters and writings, the most prominent of which are from Kathryn Hulme concerning the Russian mystic Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff and the foundation established to carry on his work. There are also notations by Solita Solano of private meetings with Gurdjieff and notes from formal lectures on subjects such as truth, essence and personality, fasting, liberation, and symbolism.
The Writings File consists chiefly of the drafts, galley proofs, and printed copies of books and articles by Flanner, Solano, and members of their literary circle. Twenty volumes of selected articles by Flanner from
In addition to the writings of Flanner and Solano, the files contain works by Aragon, Karen Blixen, Kay Boyle, Nancy Cunard, Georgette Leblanc, and Monica Stirling. Title pages and inscriptions of published volumes transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library have been reproduced and filed with this series.
The Papers of Associates series comprises letters to Margaret Anderson, Geraldine Balayé, Elizabeth Jenks Clark, and Monica Stirling from such figures as Aragon, Karen Blixen, Colette, Nancy Cunard, Pierre de Massot, Ezra Pound, Man Ray, Carl Sandburg, Edith Sitwell, Alice B. Toklas, Carl Van Vechten, E.B. White, and William Carlos Williams.
Complementing the more personal items relating to Flanner and Solano are clippings, certificates and awards, invitations, passports, wills, and other material found in the Miscellany series.
The Scrapbooks consist of six volumes which originally contained numerous photographs of families and friends, letters, poems, clippings, and miscellaneous items. These volumes were microfilmed and dismantled, and the photographs transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library. These images, some of which were taken by noted photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Carl Van Vechten, are primarily of close friends including Margaret Anderson, Karen Blixen, Dorothy Caruso, Nancy Cunard, Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Noel Murphy, and Olga Petrova. Letters and other writings, interfiled with like material in the collection, augment files for André Malraux, Marianne Moore, Raymond Mortimer, Harold W. Ross, William Shawn, Rebecca West, Thornton Wilder, and Alexander Woollcott. Clippings and miscellaneous material remain in the dismantled scrapbooks.
The collection is arranged in eight series:
Letters sent and received.
Arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent.
Clippings, notes, articles, correspondence, and other items.
Arranged alphabetically by subject.
Drafts, galley proofs, and printed copies of books and articles, speeches, poems, and other writings by Flanner, Solano, and others. Reproductions of title pages and inscriptions from books and pamphlets received with the papers but transferred to the Rare Books and Special Collections have been included at the end of the series.
Arranged in three groups: writings of Flanner, of Solano, and by others, in alphabetical order by name of author and by title therein.
Papers of Margaret Anderson, Geraldine Balayé, Elizabeth Jenks Clark, and Monica Stirling, including correspondence and other items.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person.
Cards, clippings, certificates, awards, invitations, wills, printed matter, and other items.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material or name of person or organization.
Clippings and miscellaneous printed matter.
Letters, writings, and other materials were removed from the scrapbooks after microfilming and interfiled into the collection. Photographs were removed and transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division. The scrapbooks before dismantling are contained on microfilm (shelf no. 17,481).
General correspondence which contained restrictions on access until 1995.
Organized alphabetically by name of correspondent.
Song, award, drawing with letter, and scrapbooks.
Organized and described according to the series, folders, and containers from which the items were removed.