Title: James Agee/Tamara Comstock Letters

Date/Date Range :   1954-1955

Extent: 0.2 linear feet

Abstract:

The Agee-Comstock collection contains ten letters sent from James Agee to Tamara Comstock between August 1954 and March 1955. The letters detail Agee's personal life (recounting events surrounding the birth of his last child and his health problems), his writing (updating her on his current professional projects and struggles with his personal work), and some discussion of Agee and Comstock's relationship.

Call number: MS-2296

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

Aquisition Information:

The Special Collections Library purchased this collection in 2005.

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], James Agee/Tamara Comstock Letters, MS-2296. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of two folders.

James Rufus Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee to Hugh and Laura Agee on November 27, 1909. His father died in an automobile accident in 1916. Two years later, he and his mother moved to Sewanee, TN. Here, Agee attended St. Andrew's School, run by Episcopal monks. From there, he went to Phillips Exeter Academy and then to Harvard University. A parody written for The Harvard Advocate contributed to Agee's employment at Fortune Magazine. His first book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, grew out of an article for Fortune. Agee next worked as a book and film review for Time, and then as a script-writer for television and movies. Among the more famous are The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). At the time of his death in May 1955, Agee had been married three times and was the father of four children.

Agee left behind his incomplete A Death in the Family, an unfinished novel on the impact of his father's death. It had been a project of his for nearly twenty years. David McDowell picked up the fragments and chapters, turning them into a complete work. In 1958, Agee won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for the novel.

The Agee-Comstock collection contains ten letters sent from James Agee to Tamara Comstock between August 1954 and March 1955. The letters detail Agee's personal life (recounting events surrounding the birth of his last child and his health problems), his writing (updating her on his current professional projects and struggles with his personal work), and some discussion of Agee and Comstock's relationship. Seven of the original envelopes and five copies of photographs of Tamara Comstock are also included.

• Agee, James, 1909-1955.
• Comstock, Tamara, 1920-2001.
• Correspondence.