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Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.
Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.

Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.

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Archive of completed and working typescripts by American architect and artist Donald Morris Kirkpatrick (1887–1966), comprising 13 novels and 7 short stories, together with a smaller but substantial group of 15 short stories by his wife, the artist Renée Despard Kirkpatrick, whom he married in 1920. Best known as a prize-winning architect and later a Bermuda watercolorist and printmaker, his work as a writer is little documented.

A native of Easton, Pennsylvania, Kirkpatrick graduated from Lafayette College, studied under Paul Cret at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1912 won the William Harkness Prize to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After World War I service, he returned to Philadelphia to practice and teach at Penn, later studying etching and watercolor in France under Édouard Léon. He received an Honorable Mention at the Paris Salon in 1931 and moved to Bermuda in 1934, where he pursued art and printmaking and helped found the Bermuda Society of Artists.

The 13 novels, listed alphabetically, are: “Appearing for Marianna Pindar”; “Gailey the Courier”; “I Do Not Like You, Mr. Pell”; “Land of Plenty”; “Mind, Bodies and Estate”; “No Easy Road”; “Nor IronBars”; “No. Six Warning”; “The One-Eyed Town”; “Take a Knife for Example”; “The Ultimate Humbug”; “Unfinished Business”; and “Who Once Was Blind.” All novel manuscripts are complete; six are accompanied by additional copies, preliminary efforts, or individual chapters or sections. The novels comprise 5,640 typed pages in total. With four exceptions, the manuscripts bear Kirkpatrick’s Bermuda address or the name of his home, “Landfall,” suggesting composition largely after his regular visits to Bermuda beginning in 1929. A bound copy of “The One-Eyed Town” bears the rubber stamp of the British literary agents Pearn, Pollinger & Higham, active from 1935.

Also present are 7 short stories or story-length pieces by Kirkpatrick, totaling an additional 239 pages: “La Maison Perdue”; “What Price Work”; “Daddy’s Great War”; “Dress Parade”; “The Honor and the Glory”; “Curtain Call” (fragment); and “Experiment in Nobility.”

Renée D. Kirkpatrick’s manuscripts appear to be short stories and, in many cases, writing exercises from a home-study course undertaken while the couple lived in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; some appear to have been written in Bermuda. Her 15 short stories are entitled “Winter Afternoon”; “A Wagner Matinee”; “Oh, lay off…” [opening words]; “Why, even a dog…” [opening words]; “The Cafe de l’Univers”; “Dead Sea Fruit”; “The Four Houses” [stamped “Home Study”]; “Where is Thy Victory…?”; “Mrs. Jorgensen”; “Sunlight filtered…” [opening words]; “Interlude”; “Once I Built a Railroad” [in four parts]; “The Clock Strikes Twelve”; “The Embittered Angel Fish”; “The last beams of the setting sun…” [opening words]; and “There’s Sunshine Over Cannes.” Including a few duplicate copies, her contribution totals 370 manuscript pages.

Well over 6,000 pages in all, a sizable cache of unpublished fiction, with neither Kirkpatrick recorded in OCLC, offering potential for literary and cultural study; at least one manuscript, “No. Six Warning,” has a Bermuda theme.

Description: Donald M. & Renée D. Kirkpatrick, Bermuda Artists — Archive of 35 Literary Works in Typed Manuscript, c.1930–45.

[“Landfall” (House), Crawl and Bailey’s Bay, Bermuda, and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, c.1930–1945]. Approx. 6,250 pp. Typed original and carbon-copy manuscripts for 13 novels and 22 short stories. Quarto sheets, rectos only. Some scattered handwritten emendations and corrections. All very good to near fine.

 [3729105]

Notes. 1. Donald Morris Kirkpatrick biography —; Bermuda, Caribbean and West Indies Art - The Lusher Gallery LLC New York accessed online. 2. Ibid. 3. History - David Higham Associates accessed online.

Price: $4,500.00

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