The William Charvat Collection of American Literature is the principal repository for the literary archive of Raymond Carver and this year has been a particularly good year for Carver.  The Library of America issued a Carver volume this past summer and James Carroll, in a review for the Times Literary Supplement (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731684.ece), noted that “the pleasure of reading Carver, who died in 1988 at the age of fifty, derives partly from his bizarre scenarios and from absurdist dialogue which yet retains the quality of overheard conversation; equally, it comes from pace and phrasing, even paragraphing and punctuation, which the author controls with what are practically musical skills.”  In November, Scribner released the long awaited biography of Carver by Carol Sklenicka, Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life.   In a front page review for the New York Times Book Review, Stephen King calls Carver “surely the most influential writer of American short stories in the second half of the 20th century.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/King-t.html) In appreciation of Carver’s achievement RBMS will be displaying the new biography, the Library of America volume and other items in its display case in the East Atrium of the Thompson Library.  Please watch for it in January 2010.

Geoffrey D. Smith (Ph.D.), Professor and
Head, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library