Susan Cheever collection primarily school Juvenilia
Date Published: [1955] to 1977
Binding: No binding
Susan Cheever is a novelist, non-fiction author, journalist, literary historian, teacher, and biographer. Cheever was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1983. She graduated from Pembroke College in Brown University. Her father was a celebrated American novelist and short story writer.
This collection contains approximately 44 pieces with about 150 pages dating from the 1950's to 1977.
Collection contents;
1) Two transcripts of poems,
2) Signed check, Susan Cowley [Cheever], 5 June 1968.
3) 1 Christmas card from John and Mary Cheever, with envelope, not signed.
4) Envelope signed by John Cheever, post-marked 20 September 1973, first day issue
5) Willa Cather. Ts., 1 p., signed by John Cheever, chapter 1, first 3 paragraphs of The Wapshot Scandal, n.d.
6) Typescript [9] pp., begins “Most of the employees at the Maryville Letter Factory….” by Benjamin H. Cheever (novelist), son of John Cheever and Susan Cheever’s brother, with a TLS to Robie Macauley, Fiction Editor, Playboy, 15 December 1977.
7) Approximately 137 pp. of written and typed text; These texts are class assignments, reports, or essays. The texts which she wrote primarily in 1957 when she was 13 years of age were completed at the Marymount International School in Rome when her family moved there for a year after the publication of her father’s first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle. In her assignments at Marymount, she usually quotes the school’s motto, “All for Jesus Through Mary”.
8) TLS from John Cheever, 24 June 1978, with envelope, Cheever can’t remember the book he favored when he was a child, his grandmother read him the complete works of Dickens.
Examples of the written and typed text content;
•[answers regarding literary subjects: II An Old Pirate; III “For men must work…”; 2 and 3 re Horey, Longfellow, and Masefield], [2 pp.], ms., [195?]. Graded 98%.
•[4 answers to a French quiz], [1 p.], ms., [195?].
•[answers to questions 5-9, correction to 3, 5, 7-9; re democracy vs. autocracy], [2 pp.]. ms., [195?].
•“The Constitution”, 2 pp., ms., [195?].
•There is also a folder with this title, but it contains a typed transcript of Longfellow’s poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”, [5 pp.]. A teacher [E.] has written: “Susan, this is a great improvement in your ability to organize and prepare a written report.”
•“The united students board of Marymount”, [1 p.], ms., [195?]. Teacher’s comment: “Your composition has no depths –it is very weak take a substantial thought and then elaborate on it.”
•“The manufacturing interests of the North Sea countrys [sic]”, [2 pp.], ms., [195?].
•Book report, Henry Van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man. [2 pp.], ms., [195?].
•Book report, Robert L. Stevenson’s Kidnapped. [2 pp.], ms., [195?].
•Book report, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. [2 pp.], ms., [195?].
•Book report, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. [2 pp.], ms., 12 December [195?].
•“The German Empire”, [2 pp.], ms., 21 January [195?]
•“Religion Test”, [2 pp.], ms., 18 February [195?], Graded 98.
•“George Washington – The Father of a Wonderful Country”, [1 p.], ms., 21 February [195?].
•“History”, [answers to 9 questions], [4 pp.], ms., 22 March [195?]. Graded 85%. Includes John Cheever’s signature.
•“Questions History”, [answers to 10 questions], [5 pp.], ms., 30 April [195?]. Graded 88%.
•“History Test”, [answers to 5 questions, questions 6 to 9 also listed], [2 pp.], ms., 12 December [195?]. Graded 86%.
•“Social Studies Quiz”, 2 pp., ms., 29 January 1954. Graded 18 out of 20.
•[answers to 5 questions], “Geography”, [2 pp.]. ms., February 1957. Graded 90%.
•[answers to 19 questions], “Science”, [2 pp.], ms., 8 February 1957. Graded 83%.
•“History”, [answers to 10 questions], [2 pp.], ms., 21 February 1957. Graded 95%.
•[answers to 15 questions], “Literature”, 3 pp., ms., 28 February 1957. Graded 75%.
•“Francisco Franco”, [1 p.], ms., 3 March 1957. Marked incomplete.
•“Chiang Kai-Shek”, [2 pp]., ms., 5 March 1957.
•[answers to 10 questions about scientific discovery], [2 pp.], ms., 6 March 1957.
•“Geography grade 8”, [answers to 10 questions], [4 pp.], ms., 8 March 1957, rip on the second leaf. Graded 88%. Signed twice by John Cheever.
•“Dictée français classe 8”, [2 pp.], ms., March [1957]. Graded 85. With a ms. transcription of John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”, 2 pp.
•“Literature”, [answers to 8 questions], [2 pp.], ms., 29 March 1957.
•Religion, Grade 8, [answers to 10 questions], [2 pp.] (1 leaf), ms., 17 April 1957. Graded 96.
•“Grade 8 Spelling”, [3 pp.], ms., 2 May 1957. Graded 2 May 1957.
•“Religion”, [answers to 12 questions], [3 pp.], ms., 8 May 1957. Graded 100%.
•“Communism in Italy”, Modern European History, handwritten notes on [1], 57 cards in a portfolio, 1 May 1960. Graded C+.
•“For the important decisions are made in a moment….”, 2 pp., ts., English composition, [1961]. With teacher’s handwritten comments [3 paragraphs, K.C.] addressed to Miss Cheever, “Nicely done!”
•[4 answers and discussion about men sacrificing their lives for an ultimate purpose or belief, poem entitled “Billy Budd”], [6 pp.], ms., [1961]. With teacher’s handwritten comments [K.C.], “Generally adequate – but you don’t think the poem is profound because you’ve missed part of the point. Why do men sacrifice their lives?”
•“Judge Michel – setting up a standard (your decor) is he immoral? What should he do now?”, [6 pp.], ms., [1961?]. With teacher’s handwritten comments [K.C.], graded A.
•“Define what it means to change one’s mind. What importance does the process have for you you?”, [6 pp.], ms., Eng.
Comp. I, 23 September 1961. With teacher’s handwritten comments [K.C.] addressed to Miss Cheever, “You have not answered the 2nd ½ of the question at all….”
•“Cooper’s Indians in his novel, The Prairie”, [4 pp.], ts., 25 September [1961], English I.C. 3-4. With teacher’s handwritten comments, graded C-.
•“Review the material related to Scott’s category of `commodity’ in the criticism of the UN buildings….”, 3 pp., ts., Halloween [1961?], Eng Comp I. Teacher’s handwritten comments [K.C.] on last page.
•“Rewrite: in a brief essay, criticize some architectural fixture of Sayles Hall….”, [4 pp.], ts., 17 October 1961, English I, with teacher’s handwritten comments on the first 3 pages.
•“A commentary on the chapter “Spring” in Thoreau’s Walden”, [5 pp.], ts., 27 November 1961, Eng. IC. Teacher’s comment on first page, graded C.
•“Machiavelli: a destructive criticism”, [5 pp.], ts., Merry Christmas [1961?], Poli Sci IC 1, Mr. Hargrove. Teacher’s comments on first page, graded B+.
•“Would you say that Molière’s Don Juan is the same as Pascal’s libertin?….”, [4 pp.], ts., 26 February 1962, French 10, Mr. Dewart. With a couple of comments in Dewart’s hand.
•[essays and answers about Pascal, Voltaire, and Rousseau], [7 pp.], ms., French 10, 12 March 1962. Graded 71.
•[analysis of Robert Frost’s poem, “I Could Give All to Time”], [5 pp.], ts., April 1962, English IC4. With teacher’s comments, graded C: “This is not up to the quality of your earlier work….”
•“A criticism of Willmore Kendall’s criticism of the second chapter of J.S. Mill’s On Liberty”, [7 pp.], ts., 8 May 1962, Political Science I02, Mr. Hargrove. Graded B+ with Hargrove’s handwritten comments.
• TLS from John Cheever, 24 June 1978, with envelope, Cheever can’t remember the book he favored when he was a child, his grandmother read him the complete works of Dickens.
Collection is on consignment with LDRB.
Item #7744
$980.00 USD
$1,353.37 CAD