George Garrett papers

George Palmer Garrett, Jr. was born to George Palmer and Rosalie Toomer Garrett in Orlando, Florida, on June 11, 1929. He married musician Susan Parrish Jackson on June 14, 1952, and they had three children, William Palmer Garrett, Rosalie Alice Garrett, and George Gorham Garrett. Garrett died in Charlottesville, on May 26, 2008, at 78 years of age. Garrett graduated from the Sewanee Military Academy, Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1946, and the Hill School, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1947. His college education began at Princeton, where he was awarded his Bachelor’s degree in 1952, his Master’s in 1956, and his doctorate in 1985 for his work on his three Elizabethan novels. After his graduation from Princeton in 1952, Garrett served in the U.S. Army Active Reserves (Field Artillery) in the Free Territory of Trieste and in Linz, Austria.

Garrett taught at the University of Virginia from 1962-1967 and again as the Henry Hoyns professor of creative writing from 1984-1999. He also taught at Wesleyan University (1957-1960), Rice University (1961-1962), Hollins College (1967-1971), the University of South Carolina (1971-1974), Princeton (1974-1977), Columbia University (1977-1978), and the University of Michigan (1979-1984). He also served as poetry editor for the Transatlantic Review from 1958-1971. Garrett was a popular choice for literary readings, lectures and talks to a variety of audiences; a book reviewer for many publications; and served as a reader for several academic presses. He was also very generous in his recommendations of students and colleagues and in supporting publications of new authors with blurbs and other statements.

Some recent examples of Garrett’s many awards and honors include: The T.S. Eliot Award (1989), the Thomas Wolfe Prize (2006), the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction (1991), the Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award (2005), the New York Public Library Literary Lion Award (1988), Aiken-Taylor Award (1999) the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers (2005), and the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize (2006). He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, 1988-1993, and as Chancellor, 1993-1997, as well as President of the Associated Writing Programs, 1971-1974.

For more information about Garrett and his work, the following books are useful: Understanding George Garrett by R.H.W. Dillard; George Garrett: the Elizabethan Trilogy edited by Brooke Horvath and Irving Malin; To Come Up Grinning: A Tribute to George Garrett by Paul Ruffin and Stuart Wright; and The Art of the Magic Striptease: the Literary Layers of George Garrett by Casey Clabough. Stuart Wright has also edited George Garrett A Bibliography, 1947-1988, which is useful for his earlier work. Resources within the collections include three folders of articles about George Garrett in Box 66 and assorted news clippings about his career in Box 76. There are also numerous resources available on the internet and other shorter print sources.