Title: Cyril Kay-Scott's Blind Mice Manuscript

Date/Date Range :   undated

Extent: 0.5 linear feet

Abstract:

This collection the Cyril Kay-Scott's Blind Mice Manuscript includes his hand-written undated manuscript Blind Mice . Each of the five delicate volumes is covered with rewrites.

Call number: MS-2282

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

Collection was purchase in December 1998.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Cyril Kay-Scott's Blind Mice Manuscript, MS-2282. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of five folders.

Cyril Kay-Scott (1879-1960) was born Frederick Creighton Wellman. After four children and two marriages, he eloped on December 26, 1913, to New York City with native Tennessean Evelyn Scott (born Elise Dunn, 1893-1963). Because he was still married, they changed their names and moved to Brazil, where they had a son named Creighton "Jigg" Scott in 1914. In 1919, the family returned to New York City. Cyril published Blind Mice and Evelyn The Narrow House in 1921. In 1922 Owen Merton, a family friend, persuaded him to start a new career as a watercolorist. Then, after extensive travel throughout Europe, Cyril and Creighton returned to America in 1928, when he filed for divorce from Evelyn. Cyril moved to Santa Fe, NM, and opened an art school. Between 1931 and 1934, he was director of the Denver Art Museum, and then he and Creighton worked on a Works Progress Administration project. Life is Too Short , the autobiography of Cyril Kay-Scott, was published in 1943.

This collection the Cyril Kay-Scott's Blind Mice Manuscript includes his hand-written undated manuscript Blind Mice . Each page is covered with rewrites. It has 38 chapters and comes in five delicate volumes. This book achieved critical success, but was eclipse by his wife Evelyn Scott's novel The Narrow House , which was published in the same year, 1921.

• American Literature -- 20th century.
• Kay-Scott, Cyril, 1879-1960.