A Preliminary Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Kops, Bernard, 1926-
Title:
Bernard Kops Papers
Dates:
1954-2003
Extent:
20 boxes (8.4 linear feet)
Abstract:
The papers include drafts of published and unpublished plays,
stories, poetry, and notes for various projects, as well as Kops's autobiography Shalom Bomb; scenes from my life. Also present is personal and
career-related material such as articles, correspondence, and travel notes. Correspondence
includes letters with fellow artists and to Kop’s wife.
The inventory for the Bernard Kops Papers is a conflation of two preliminary inventories
created in 2001 and 2003 which described two additions to the unprocessed collection.
Both
of these additions are minimally processed and the 2003 addition was appended to the
end of
the 2001 inventory. Because both additions began the box numbering with Box 1, the
2003
addition is differentiated with adding the letter "a" to the original box number (e.g.,
Box
1a, Box 2a, etc.). The inventories were combined in 2025 to comply with a new content
management system.
Scope and Contents
The 2001 addition to the Bernard Kops collection at the Ransom Center includes drafts
of
published and unpublished plays, stories, and poetry as well as his autobiography
Shalom Bomb; scenes from my life. Play titles include The Boy Who Wouldn't Play Jesus, Change for the Angel, The Dream of Peter Mann, Enter Solly Gold, Falling in Love Again, I Want to Go Home, and Stray Cats and Empty Bottles. Also included is correspondence with
Lindsay Anderson, Michael Horovitz, Harold Innocent, Warren Mitchell, Olga Rudge,
Arnold
Wesker and others, and Kops's letters to his wife Erica.
The 2003 addition includes drafts of published and unpublished plays, stories, poetry,
and
notes for various projects. Also present is personal and career-related material such
as
articles, correspondence, and travel notes.
This segment is arranged in three series: I. Works, II. Notes, and III. Personal and
Career-Related.
The Works series contains primarily plays for stage, radio, and television, beginning
with
Kops' earliest works, Goodbye World produced in 1959 and
David It Is Getting Dark, 1960, to various drafts of I Am Isaac Babel in 2003. Also of interest is his poetry,
especially new unpublished poems completed as recently as 2002.
Series II contains notes for literary projects with typescript fragments interspersed.
Articles, biographical information, correspondence, interviews, and travel notes are
found
in Series III. Personal and Career-Related. Kops' trip aboard the cruise ship Saga Rose, leading to an article in the Guardian, is particularly well-represented.
Books received with the with the 2001 and 2003 additions were transferred to the Ransom
Center Library.
