Historical Novelist's Papers Given

An extensive collection of the papers, correspondence, manuscripts, and personal library of American historical novelist Kenneth Roberts, Litt.D. '34, author of Northwest Passage, has been given to the College.

In a letter in the collection Roberts describes himself in 1934 as "broke and dreadfully discouraged - at the nadir of my discouragement" when President Hopkins wrote hoping he would accept an honorary doctorate of letters. "I reread the letter with something resembling awe," wrote Roberts; "he hoped I would be willing to accept a sort of intangible literary re-birth."

The gift was made by the late author's niece, Mrs. Marjorie Mosser Ellis, coauthor with her uncle of a Maine cookbook and her husband Frank B. Ellis of Kennebunkport.

The 250 variant editions and printings of Roberts' books and more than 1000 volumes from his source library are made all the more valuable by the author's marginal notes and observations. Some show his skepticism of the sources: "This is bunk!", "Nuts! Cornwallis surrendered in Oct. 1781," and, on a biography of Benedict Arnold (subject of Roberts' "Rabble in Arms"), "One of the lousiest pieces of biographical writing ever done. Rivaled only by Decker's life of Arnold."

Much of the correspondence has to do with his interest in the art of "dowsing." A gas station map in the collection has, the route of Cornwallis' march drawn on it and the route traveled by Oliver Wiswell.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Ellis of Kennebunkport, Me., donors of the Kenneth RobertsCollection, examine one of the items with Librarian Richard W. Morin '24 (r).