In recognition of October’s American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, Thomas Wolfe’s birthday, and the publishing of his first novel, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the complex history between Pack Memorial Library and Look Homeward, Angel.
On October 18, 1929, just a few weeks after Thomas Wolfe turned 29, his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, hit bookstore shelves. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Wolfe’s novel would be well received in the literary world with glowing reviews of his writing and story. Reviews in the Asheville Citizen even had praise for the hometown author, with one reviewer, Lola M. Love, stating that “the book is a genius’ combination of reality, which will not shrink from even the most sordid details of everyday life, and of a child-like expression of the most delightful fantasy.”[1]
Although the novel was written as a work of fiction, it was autobiographical in nature, sharing the story of a young Eugene Gant coming of age in the southern town of Altamont. The novel caused an uproar among many of Asheville’s citizens who felt that the characters, who were easily identifiable as their real-life counterparts, cast them in a poor light.
In a note “To The Reader” at the beginning of Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe writes “This is a first book, and in it the author has written of experience which is now far and lost, but which was once part of the fabric of his life. If any reader, therefore, should say that the book is ‘autobiographical’ the writer has no answer for him : it seems to his that all serious work in fiction is autobiographical…This note, however, is addressed principally to those persons whom the writer may have known in the period covered by these pages. To these persons, he would say what he believes they understand already: that this book was written in innocence and nakedness of spirit, and that the writer’s main concern was to give fullness, life and intensity to the actions and people in the book he was creating.” He ended by saying that it is “a book that is written from a middle distance and is without rancour of bitter intention.”[2]
On October 28, 1929, Wolfe sent a telegram to his sister Mabel regarding the novel and its success. In the telegram he addresses the reactions of his former friends and neighbors by telling Mabel that “no matter what Asheville thinks now they will understand in time that I tried to write [a] moving honest book about great people that is the way the world outside Asheville is taking it.”
While Look Homeward, Angel found its way into bookstores and libraries worldwide, it somehow failed to make it onto the shelves of Asheville’s main library. An article in the Asheville Citizen on October 12, 1935 quoted North Carolina Library Association speaker Phillips Russell, an associate professor at UNC Chapel Hill, who stated at the annual conference that was being held in Asheville that year that Thomas Wolfe’s hometown library did not have any copies of Look Homeward, Angel.[3]
He would share this same story with newspapers across the state with the October 15 edition of the Raleigh News and Observer going so far as to say that “a library in Asheville attempting to disregard and disclaim Wolfe is both futile and absurd. Wolfe is not injured by exile from its shelves, but the public library is injured by a policy of censorship which has no place in the free world of books and intelligence.”[4] Interestingly, this same newspaper titled their October 1929 book review of Look Homeward, Angel with “Wolfe’s First is Novel of Revolt: Former Asheville Writer Turns in Fury Upon N.C. and the South.”[5]
Pack Memorial Library’s decision not to carry Wolfe’s novels did not seem to bother the author as much as it did the literary world. On November 20, 1935, the Asheville Citizen ran an article sharing an interview Thomas Wolfe did with the New York Herald-Tribune. During the interview, Wolfe was informed that his local library “has not yet seen fit” to put his novel on its shelves. Wolfe responded “that’s o.k. with me. I don’t think there’s a hundred people in Asheville who haven’t read it.”[6]
By the end of that year, Pack Memorial Library would have at least a few Wolfe novels in its collection. According to reports, they received donations from local lawyer Taylor Bledsoe, who donated Wolfe’s new novel Of Time and the River,[7] and from F. Scott Fitzgerald, who donated two copies of Look Homeward, Angel.[8] Some sources suggest that the Library Board directed the library to acquire Thomas Wolfe’s novels after Russell’s statement that October, though the archived board meeting minutes for November and December of that year make no mention of Wolfe or his novels.
A possible explanation of why Wolfe’s first novel never made it to the shelves of Pack Memorial Library until 1935 was provided by George McCoy (1901-1962) in an essay written for the April 1953 issue of the North Carolina Historical Review. McCoy, an Asheville native whose career would include being an editor for the Asheville Citizen-Times, a Secretary of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, and a member of Asheville-Buncombe Library Board, was also a close friend of Thomas Wolfe.
In his essay McCoy shares that “a librarian borrowed a copy of “Look Homeward, Angel”, read portions of it, did not like it, and did not put it on the acquisitions list.” He went on to say that if someone asked for the book, they were simply told the library did not have it.[9] While Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel would finally make it onto the library’s shelves six years after publication, Thomas Wolfe himself would not return to Asheville until 1937.
The Thomas Wolfe Collection
Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe, 1935, signed by the author, 1937. Buncombe County Special Collections, Thomas Wolfe Collection, WOLFE REF NC 813 WOL.
By the late 1940s Pack Memorial Library had added hundreds of Wolfe novels, criticisms, and interpretations. This effort was spearheaded by librarian Myra Champion, who in 1947, with the approval of head librarian Margaret Ligon and the Library Board, established the Thomas Wolfe Collection. Included in this collection are first editions, signed and inscribed copies, foreign editions in over nineteen languages, personal correspondence, as well as over 500 photographs and 700 articles and reviews.
The collection received donations from around the world and more locally, from the Wolfe and Westall families. Among the donations are personal copies of Wolfe’s novels and correspondence from Thomas Wolfe’s mother and siblings. Myra Champion oversaw the collection until her retirement 25 years later, in 1971. Her passion for what she called “Wolfiana,” her term for the Thomas Wolfe Collection, led to her becoming the local authority on Wolfe.[10] The Thomas Wolfe Collection is now housed in Buncombe County Special Collections and fittingly includes Myra Champion’s personal collection of “Wolfiana.”
To learn more about Thomas Wolfe please visit us on the lower level of Pack Memorial Library or visit the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and take a tour of the boarding house memorialized in Look Homeward, Angel.
By Kathy Hill, Librarian, Buncombe County Special Collections
[1] “Stirring First Novel by Local Man Making Bit Hit In Literary World” in The Asheville Citizen October 20, 1929, page 1. https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-look-homeward-a/133715809/
[2] Wolfe Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel : The Story of the Buried Life. New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1929.
[3] “Wolfe’s Work Taken Up In Discussion at Meet” in The Asheville Citizen October 12, 1935, page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-phillips-russell/133716456/
[4] “Library Note” in The News and Observer, Raleigh, NC, October 15, 1935, page 4. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-and-observer-library-note-ralei/133716888/
[5] “Wolfe’s First is Novel of Revolt” in The News and Observer, Raleigh, NC, October 20, 1929, page 30, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-and-observer-wolfes-first-is-n/133717090/
[6] “Yancy County Has Lure For Thomas Wolfe” in The Asheville Citizen November 20, 1935, page 6. https://7039.sydneyplus.com/archive/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AAEM&record=12900b80-9875-4474-bb0c-aa381c8c7606
[7] “Copy of Wolfe’s Book is Donated to Pack Library” in The Asheville Citizen November 30, 1935, page 7. https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-copy-of-wolfes/133718532/
[8] McCoy, George W. “Asheville and Thomas Wolfe”, The North Carolina Historical Review Vol. 30 No. 2 (April 1953), 200-217. https://archive.org/details/northcarolinahis1953nort/page/200/mode/2up?q
[9] McCoy, George W. “Asheville and Thomas Wolfe”, The North Carolina Historical Review Vol. 30 No. 2 (April 1953), 200-217. https://archive.org/details/northcarolinahis1953nort/page/200/mode/2up?q
[10] ”Myra Champion: Wolfe Authority” in The Asheville Citizen-Times April 18, 1971, page 49. https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-myra-champion-19/133724936/
reading Wolfe in October in Asheville as good as it gets
Thanks for posting this excellent article!