MsC 565
Iowa Author
Manuscript
Manuscript Register
PAPERS
OF RICHARD PIKE BISSELL
Collection Dates: 1951 -- 1973
13.5 linear ft.
This document describes a collection of materials held
by the
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1420
Phone: 319-335-5921
Fax: 319-335-5900
e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
Posted to Internet: January1998
Addenda: 1988, 2004, 2006
Acquisition
Note: These
papers were given to the Univeristy of Iowa Libraries by Richard Pike
Bissell and his widow, Marion Bissell, over a period of years. In 2004,
Frank J. Anderson donated one linear foot of correspondence and manuscripts. The 2006 addendum, given by Bissell's wife and daughter, Anastasia, tripled the size of the collection.
Access
and Restrictions: This
collection is open for research.
Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but
does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this
collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections
Department.
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Table
of Contents
Biographical
note
Scope
and contents
Series I: Manuscripts
Series
II: Frank J. Anderson addendum
Series III: Clippings
Series IV: Correspondence
Series
V: Miscellaneous
Richard Pike Bissell
(1913 -- 1977) was a native of Dubuque, Iowa, which is located on the banks
of the Mississippi River. Although he attended an elite prep school in New Hampshire
and was a 1936 graduate of Harvard University, he never escaped the river's
lure. After receiving his B.A. in anthropology, Bissell took a job as a seaman
on the American Export Lines. In 1938, he married and returned to Dubuque, where
he went to work in the family business. The couple bought a houseboat and lived
on the Mississippi. Unable to enlist in the Navy during Word War II, he instead
joined the crew of the Central Barge Company of Chicago. He worked on towboats
on the Ohio, Mississippi, Illinois, Monongahela, and Tennessee rivers, rising
from a deckhand to a river pilot.
When the war ended
he returned to Dubuque and resumed his work for H.B. Glover Company, the garment
factory founded by his grandfather a century earlier. Bissell began writing
about his river experiences and had his stories published in journals such as
Atlantic Monthly, Colliers, and Esquire. Bissell's greatest
success came when he wrote a humorous novel based on the activities at the garment
factory. 7 ½ Cents changed the Bissell's lives. The family moved
to the East coast so he could turn the book into a musical play for Broadway.
Now titled The Pajama Game, it was a smash and soon became a motion picture.
This experience provided the fodder for his novel Say, Darling, which
also became a Broadway musical.
Richard Bissell wrote
twelve books and numerous articles over the course of his career. In 1975, the
Bissell's moved back to Dubuque - to the house his grandfather built. He died
there on May 4, 1977, at the age of sixty-three.
The papers of Richard
Pike Bissell, dating from approximately 1952 to 1973, consist of five linear
feet of manuscripts. Holograph and typescript drafts, galley proofs, editor's
notes, source material and more and combine to document the writing of many
of Bissell's novels. Some of the books include: 7 1/2 Cents, The
Monogahela,
Still Circling Moose Jaw, and High Water.
Frank Anderson was
a friend of Bissell's. He was a librarian at Kansas Wesleyan University as
well as the proprietor of a bookshop, first in Salina, Kansas and then in
Spartanburg, South Carolina. He corresponded with Bissell, collected his
books, kept bibliographic citations of reviews of Bissell's books and for
biographical sources on Bissell. He published an article about Bissell in The
Midwestern Review in
1964. In 2004, Anderson donated these papers to the University of Iowa.
Related Materials
Link to Bissell's
page on the National Mississippi River Museum's web site
Box
1
Artwork
by John O'Hara Cosgrove for New American Library  |
Series I: Manuscripts
Subseries A: Book and play manuscripts
Good Bye
Ava
Original
holograph draft (2 folders)
Typescript draft
with revisions (2 folders)
How Many Miles
to Galena?
Third draft
(2 folders)
Unused chapters
The Monongahela
(1952)
Coal Queen
-- correspondence, 1949
Coal Queen -- original
draft with revisions
Coal Queen -- final
draft
Early draft with
revisions
My Life on the
Mississippi or Why I Am Not Mark Twain (Little Brown, 1972)
Printer's
copy (2 folders)
Say, Darling
Original
holograph draft (2 folders, including in Folder I, letter from Harold Matson)
Typescript 4 folders
Say, Darling (cont.)
Printer's
typescript
Galley proofs (uncorrected)
7 1/2 Cents
(Little Brown, 1953)
Chapter
20 -- Early draft with revisions
1776
Source
material
Source material
(newspaper clippings)
Original holograph
draft
Typescript
including letter from Rhoda V. McIntyre
Galley proofs
Still Circling
Moose Jaw
Source
material
Original holograph
and typescript drafts of chapters 1 -- 13
Original
holograph and typescript drafts of chapters 14 -- 22
Tentative titles
Typescript
Galley proofs
with corrections (3 folders)
Editor's notes
Final revisions
Still Circling
Moose Jaw (cont.)
Miscellaneous
pages
Travel Bug
Miscellaneous
papers
Miscellaneous
papers (4 folders)
Travel Bug (cont.)
Miscellaneous
papers
1988
Addendum
Manuscripts, cont.
Continuing in Box 3
High Water
(Little Brown, 1954)
Original
typescript (photocopy)
Afterword from
the reprint done by the Minnesota Historical Society Press (photocopy)
2004 Addendum
Julia Harrington.
Unbound page proofs. Gift of Frank J. Anderson
Subseries B: Short
manuscripts and fragments
Continuing in Box
3
["The dirty dial"]
"Houseboat on the
Mississippi"
["I guess if it
hadn't been for our old apple tree"]
["I have been through
"]
["It was early evening"]
"The Old Timer"
["On Sam Clemens"]
["Rinert Rinartson
is"]
"Summer 1931"
["That day it rained"]
["The Tramps"]
["We came down the
next"]
Series II:
Frank J. Anderson Addendum
(Gift of Frank Anderson
in 2004)
Anderson, Frank
J. "The View From the River."
Prepared as a
KWU Library Lecture for delivery on March 26, 1963. TMs with holographic
corrections. 15 pp.
The Midwest
Quarterly,
Vol.5:No.4 (July 1964), pp.311-322.
TMs with holographic
corrections by Anderson and the editor of The Midwest Quarterly.
11pp.
ccTMs. April
16, 1964 revision. 15 pp.
Bio-bibliographical
materials for Richard Bissell. Anderson's notes
Correspondence.
Mostly letters from Bissell to others. Correspondents include Mary Richards,
Lee (Anderson notes that Lee was Bissell's Boston editor), Frank
Anderson, Bill Richards, and Fred Bissell.
Correspondence between
Frank Anderson and Richard Bissell
Obituaries for Richard
Bissell
Reviews. Copies and tear sheets
of book and theatre reviews from various newspapers and journals. Lists of
book reviews created by Anderson. Pack of 3 x 5 slips with bibliographic
citations for book reviews
River related clippings.
Collected by Anderson
Stories by Richard
Pike Bissell. Tear sheets from publications, collected by Frank Anderson.
"The Black Gates of Keokuk." The
Atlantic, 185:4 (Aril 1950), p. 31 -- 35.
"Candle Salad." The
Atlantic,
194:6 (December 1954), p. 45 -- 48/
"The Coal Queen."
The Atlantic, 184:1 (July 1949), p. 28 -- 33.
Reader's
Digest,
55:329 (September 1949), p. 29 -- 34. Condensed from The Atlantic
Monthly.
"Down on the Tennessee."
The Atlantic, 185:1 (January 1950), p. 40 -- 45.
Reader's
Digest,
56:338 (March 1950), p. 39 -- 44. Condensed from The Atlantic Monthly.
"Facing Up." The
Atlantic, 186:1 (July 1950), p. 58 - 62.
"For Houseboaters
the Livin' is Easy." Sports Illustrated, 15:8 (August 21,
1961), p. 38 -- 39.
"A Good Natured
Tour of Philadelphia." The Sunday Bulletin Matazine (Philadelphia). p.
6 -9.
"Good Old Dubuque."
Holiday, 15:3 (March 1954), p.2 unnumbered, 83, 86, 89, 91, 128, 131. Illustrated
with photography by Elliott Erwitt.
"A House Can Be
a Boat on a River. Author of Broadway Musical Pajama Game Tells About His
Floating Home on the Mississippi." Home & Highway, 9:2 (Spring 1960), p.
4 -- 9. Illustrated with photograph of Bissell and his family
"I Don't Wanna
Be No Mate." The Atlantic, 196:3 (September 1955), p. 34 -- 37.
"A Lighthearted
Tour of America." Holiday, 38:1 (July 1965), p. 30 -- 43, 74, 80, 81, 88,
89. Illustrated with photographs.
"A Nice Cool Drink
on the Porch." The Atlantic, 194:2 (August 1954), p 44 -- 45.
"Profit, Prestige,
and the Book Business." Publishers Weekly, 159:25 (June 23, 1951), p. 2530
-- 2532.
"Sauer Kraut Day
in East Dubuque." The Atlantic, 195:4 (April 1955), p. 50 -- 51.
"Trouble in Brass."
Good Housekeeping, July 1957, p. 88, 158 -- 162, 164 -- 165. Illustrated.
Included are items about The Pajama Game and Bissell on p. 22 and 32.
Series III: Clippings
Series IV:
Correspondence
Series
V: Miscellaneous
Christmas cards
Photographs of the Bissell House
on Alpine Street in Dubuque, taken in 1989
Programs for The
Pajama Game
Artwork by Peter Arno  |
2006 Addendum
Series I: Manuscripts
Box 4
7 1/2 Cents
Loose page, perhaps from 7 1/2 Cents
Manuscript and typescript. 2 folders
Prototype for 1/2 Cents?
Typescript
Typescript, various chapters with holographic revisions
Setting manuscript, 2 folders
Source material and manuscript bits
Synopsis and various chapters.
Very early manuscript
Damn Yankees
Typescript with holographic corrections.
Goodbye, Ava
Down On (or By) the Levee (working title for Goodbye, Ava?).
Manuscript
Manuscript and notes. 2 folders.
Manuscript, bound. Two different copies.
M. B. (Marian Bissell?) copy of play
First treatment, 1961.
Manuscript notes.
Box 5
Musical comedy based on the novel Goodbye, Ava
Musical numbers, cuts, additions and original materials
A new musical comedy based on the novel
Notes
Notes and manuscript parts.
Notes from meeting.
Outline
Outline and manuscript
High Water
Author's galley proofs
Manuscript, holographic
Manuscript, typescript and handwritten
Notes, etc. Endings not used
Original version, before editor "advice", typescript
Typescript with holographic corrections
Setting copy
Julia Harrington
Graphics used
Graphics not used
Manuscript, holographic
Original typescript with holographic corrections
Monongahela
Galley proof
Manuscript, holographic
Box 6
Manuscript, typed. 2 copies, 3 folders
Manuscript ideas, scraps, ideas, etc.
Manuscript pages
Typesetters copy
Pajama Game
Estimating script
Final film script
2 copies. One belonged to stage manager Robert E. Griffith
Notes
Notices and reviews
Play script, June 1954
Play script, including music and lyric credits
Programs
Original manuscript. Contains typescript and holographic portions. 2 folders
Scrapbook. The scrapbook has been disassembled. Includes some sheet music
Setting copies of the play script with holographic revisions
Box 7
Say, Darling
Chapter 1, typescript and holograph draft
Play
Bound script. Final? Has music,costume, set, and lighting credits
Bound script, cc with holographic corrections
Bissell and Burrows work
Bissell scenario
Documents relating to the play
Holographic corrections
Miscellaneous bits and dialog
Notes taken during rehearsals
Pre-production scenarios, proposals, outlines, etc
Scraps of script. 2 folders
Script with various portions, some intended for auditions
Script, typed and holographic. 3 copies
Set designs and other pre-production materials. Includes two publicity shots of two unidentified actresses. In Oversized Box?
Still Circling Moosejaw
Manuscript bits
Stretch on the River
Bits and pieces
Box 8
Bound typescript with holographic corrections
Chapter outline, notes, early typescript
Early typed manuscript (5 copies -- one fair copy and 4 with holographic corrections)
Loose chapters
Original holograph manuscript
Manuscript under the title A Refining Influence
Mock-up of cover art work (not used)
Screenplay by Noel Houston based on Bissell's book
Unused or out of place manuscript pages
Box 9
You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man
Bound typescript with holograhic corrections and additions
Manuscript, mostly holographic
Manuscript, mixed holograph and typescript
Notes
Scraps, with poetry by Wallace Irwin
Typescript with holographic corrections
Uncorrected proof
Series V: Miscellaneous
Box 10
Fortune's Darling . An early version of Goodbye Ava?
Misecellaneous documents, mostly having to do with the Mississippi River
Miscellaneous scenes. From a muscial adaptation of Goodbye Ava?
Tommy Bissell drawings and writings from scrapbook
