Dan Jacobson:

An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

Biographical Sketch

Dan Jacobson was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on March 7, 1929. His parents, Hyman and Liebe (Melamed) Jacobson, were Jewish immigrants from Latvia and Lithuania. When Jacobson was four, his family moved to the South African town of Kimberly, where he lived until he graduated from high school at the age of sixteen. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1948, then worked as a laborer in a kibbutz in Israel for nearly a year. Following a brief period of employment in London as a teacher, Jacobson returned to Johannesburg in 1951 and worked first as a public relations assistant for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and then as a journalist for its Press Digest.

In 1952, Jacobson returned to Kimberly and worked in his father's milling/cattle feed business. Jacobson had been writing since childhood but at this point decided to pursue a career as a writer and began work on The Trap. Jacobson first achieved literary success in the United States, where his first short story, "The Box, "was published in Commentary, followed by the publication of other short stories in Harpers Bazaar, the New Yorker, and other magazines. In 1954, Jacobson married Margaret Pye, a teacher and children's writer from Rhodesia whom he had met in London, and moved permanently to London, where they have reared their four children.

Jacobson's first two novels, The Trap (1955) and A Dance in the Sun (1956), were well received and won him a one-year Creative Writing Fellowship Award at Stanford University. Upon his return to England in 1957, Jacobson continued to publish novels, short stories, essays, and book reviews. In 1959, Jacobson was the recipient of the John Llewelyn Rhys Award for fiction for his collection of short stories, A Long Way from London (1958). In 1964, he received the W. Somerset Maugham award for Time of Arrival (1963), and from 1965 to 1966 he was a visiting professor at Syracuse University.

The Beginners (1966) was Jacobson's most autobiographical book and also his most successful financially. Jacobson's early works had South African settings, but he essentially left this behind following the publication of The Beginners. His next novel, The Rape of Tamar (1970), took up a religious theme and is one of his more popular books. In 1975, after earning a living solely from his writing for twenty years, Jacobson became a lecturer in English at University College in London. He also turned away from writing short stories after having had six collections of short stories published. Jacobson worked on his eighth novel, The Confessions of Josef Baisz (1977), for four years. As in many of his works, betrayal is a major theme. Like The Wonder-Worker (1973), it has a complex, multi-layered style. In 1985, Jacobson published a book of autobiographical essays, Time and Time Again: Autobiographies; it is his most personal work. Jacobson's recent books, Hidden in the Heart (1991) and The God-Fearer (1992), continue his study of betrayal and the inner workings of the human mind.

Several of Jacobson's works have been adapted for the stage; The Zulu and the Zeide was produced as a play on Broadway in 1965, A Dance in the Sun was adapted as Day of the Lion in Cleveland in 1968, and The Rape of Tamar was produced as Yonadab in London in 1985.

Jacobson, who continues as a professor of English at University College, is also still actively writing; additional material is expected in the collection. The Jacobson collection was purchased by the HRHRC in four groups from 1989 to 1992, with the exception of one item which was received as a gift in 1966.

More information about Dan Jacobson and his works may be found in Dan Jacobson by Sheila Roberts (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984).

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Scope and Contents

The Jacobson collection consists of original and carbon copy typescripts, holograph manuscripts, computer printouts, notebooks, correspondence, clippings, galley proofs, page proofs, dust jackets, book reviews and advertisements, offprints, programs, handbills, personal documents, and a sound recording, ranging in date from 1941 to 1992. The material is arranged in three series: Works (19[53]-92, 16.5 boxes), General Correspondence (1952-91, 9 folders), and Personal (1941-87, 7 folders). The Works series is arranged in five subseries: Creative Works, Critical Works, Reviews of Jacobson's Works, Interviews, and Articles about Jacobson.

Most of Jacobson's works from 1954-92 are represented in the collection. For some works, multiple drafts and corrected proofs reveal Jacobson's revision processes. In particular, the evolution of many of his short stories can be traced. Jacobson sometimes uses photocopies of other works and correspondence in printing out or typing new manuscripts, so that photocopies of some works and correspondence are located on the versos of later works. Published reviews of many of Jacobson's books show critical response to his work.

Most of the general correspondence is incoming correspondence from publishers, periodicals, and other authors. Among the correspondents are Philip Larkin, Mary McCarthy, and Leonard Woolf. Fifty-nine letters from Jacobson's literary agent, Henry Volkening, cover the years 1954-64 and provide insight into the publication process of Jacobson's early books and short stories.

Among the few personal items in the collection are correspondence regarding Jacobson's efforts to prove his eligibility to apply for the W. Somerset Maugham Award as a British citizen and correspondence relating to his role as a director of Index of Censorship.

A list of all correspondents in the Jacobson collection is located at the end of this inventory.

Over 100 books and periodicals from Jacobson's personal library have been withdrawn from the collection and cataloged with the Center's book holdings. Among these are first editions of Jacobson's books; translations into German, Hebrew, Russian, and other languages; anthologies containing stories and essays by Jacobson; textbooks, primarily college readers, containing his short stories and essays; periodicals containing his essays, articles, reviews, and stories; a copy of Sheila Roberts' Dan Jacobson; a copy of Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm; and a copy of La Sorciére by J. Michelet, with an inscription by Sonia Orwell.

Other manuscripts relating to Dan Jacobson at the HRHRC can be found in the John Lehmann and London Magazine collections. The Center also houses Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer materials.

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Restrictions

Access

Open for research

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Administrative Information

Acquisition

Gift, 1966; Purchases, 1989-92

Processed by

Katherine Mosley, 1993

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Series Descriptions

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 Dan Jacobson Papers--List of Correspondents 

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