Hilary Masters (1928-2015), author and lecturer, was born in Kansas City,
Missouri, to writer Edgar Lee Masters and his wife, Ellen (Coyne) Masters.
Masters attended Davidson College from 1944 to 1946. He interrupted his education
to serve as a naval correspondent from 1946 to 1947, and then graduated from Brown
University in 1952.
Masters had a varied literary career. He began a career as a
theatrical agent in New York from 1953 to 1956 and later was a newspaper editor
and publisher for the
Hyde Park Record from 1956 to 1959. During the
1970s and 1980s, Masters was a visiting scholar at such institutions as Drake
University (1975-1977), Clark University (1978), Ohio University (1979), and
also served as a Fulbright lecturer in Finland (1983) and at Carnegie-Mellon
University (1983-2015).
In addition to these pursuits, Masters wrote several novels,
including
The Common Pasture (1967),
An American Marriage (1969),
Palace of Strangers (1971), as well as
Last Stands: Notes from Memory, a 1982
autobiographical account of his family history. Masters' short fiction has been
published in a variety of journals, including
Greensboro Review, Massachusetts Review, Ohio Review, and
Sports Illustrated.
Hilary Masters was a member of the Authors Guild, the Author's League of
America, and the Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and
Novelists. He died on June 14, 2015.
Scope and Contents
One and a half document boxes contain typescripts, drafts, galley
proofs, filmscripts, and scenic production notes for Masters' first novel,
The Common Pasture (1967), dating
1965-68.
The collection consists of a succession of five typescript drafts of the
novel, arranged chronologically from original to final version. All of the
drafts are heavily revised with corrections by the author, as well as printer's
and editor's marks on the final draft.
The collection also contains two typescript drafts of the screenplay,
both with the author's revision, and typescript scene sketches for a film. The
latter is prefaced by the notes of the producer, Jaqueline Baxlin, indicating
script and plot changes. It is not clear whether this film was ever
completed.
There is no material in the collection relating to Masters' other
literary works or to his personal life. No correspondence is present.
