John G. and Jeannette J. Varner Papers, 1934-1992

Biographical Note

John Grier Varner was born in 1905 in Mount Pleasant, Texas and was raised in Denton. In 1926 he received a B.A. from Austin College. He taught for four years at boys preporatory schools in Mississippi and Tennessee before studying American Literature in graduate school at the University of Virginia. This is where Varner met his future wife Jeannette Johnson, a Montgomery, Alabama native. Jeannette had received her B.A. and M.A. in Romanic Languages and English at the University of Alabama and was pursuing her Ph.D in Spanish and French at the Univerity of Virginia. The Varners were married and John received his master's and doctorate degrees and took a position as Assistant Professor of English and Director of Musical Activities at Washington and Lee University in 1938. Jeannette received her Ph.D. and taught Spanish at Fairfax Hall Junior College for Women in Waynesboro, Virginia.

During World War II John Varner joined the State Department and was sent to Venezuela because of his knowledge of Spanish. From 1944-1947 he was director of the Centro Venezolano-Americano in Caracas. Jeannette taught English and Spanish there and served as the librarian for the center, and the couple also spent these three years touring and lecturing all over the area. Together they published Inglés Moderno, grammar books for students of English. In 1947 John was hired to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and also joined the staff of the University of Texas at Austin as Visiting Associate Professor of English and Director of English for Foreign Students.

The Varners settled in Austin a few years later where John continued his professorship with the Department of English and Jeannette became head reference librarian with the Austin Public Library. They spent their free time doing historical and literary research, and they began to publish a number of works about the conquest and settlement of Latin America. Their first book, The Florida of the Inca (1951), was an edited translation of Garcilaso de la Vega's account of the DeSoto expedition. Notably, it was the first publication of the Universtiy of Texas Press and received much scholarly acclaim. In 1954 the Varners traveled to Spain to conduct research for a biography on Garcilaso de la Vega. It was eventually published in 1968 by the University of Texas Press as El Inca: the Life and Times of Garcilaso de la Vega . John Varner retired from teaching in 1972 due to health concerns but continued his scholarly projects at home with his wife. They worked extensively on a book about the Spaniards' use of canines to conquer the Indian empires of America and had finished the draft when John Varned passed away in 1978. Jeannette Varner completed the project and Dogs of the Conquestwas published in 1983 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Return to the Table of Contents

Scope and Contents Note

The personal papers of author, musician, historian, and university professor John Grier Varner and his wife librarian and author Jeannette Johnson Varner. Materials date from 1873-1992 and measure 26 linear feet. The collection is arranged into five series: Personal and Biographical, Written Works, Audiovisual Materials, Collected Materials, and Oversize Materials.

The first series,   Personal and Biographical, consists of clippings and printed materials relating to the Varners' personal and professional lives. It also contains correspondence and scrapbooks of materials relating to John Varner's 1951 lecture tour of Latin America as well as items about his position with the Centro Venezolano-Americano in the 1940s.

Series two,   Written Works, includes multiple drafts and revisions of the numerous books and short shories John and Jeannette Varner wrote or translated. It also contains maps and illustrations for these works, and printed articles, correspondence, and clippings about these written works as well as documents and notes that served as research materials for them.

  Audiovisual Materials, series three, contains photographs, postcards, greeting cards, and slides of and from various places and peoples the Varners encountered in their professional and personal travels.

The fourth series,   Collected Materials, consists of various saved clippings, maps, and illustrations as well as works written by others. It also contains two boxes of subject files, mostly newsclippings, compiled by Jeannette Varner in the 1980s and 1990s.

Series five,   Oversize Materials, contains varied large format items. There are framed portraits of "El Inca" Garcilaso de la Vega and Hernando de Soto, other artwork, and maps of Latin America and Spain. It also includes posters announcing dates from John Varner's 1951 Latin American lecture tour.

Return to the Table of Contents

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Unrestricted.

Use Restrictions

Standard copyright restrictions apply.

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Cite as: John G. and Jeannette J. Varner Papers, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries, the University of Texas at Austin.

Return to the Table of Contents

Box and Folder Inventory

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents