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- Source of title proper: Title based on creator of fonds.
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1933-1987 (Creation)
- Creator
- Roper, Gordon
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43 cm of textual records
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Biographical history
Gordon Herbert Roper was born in Brantford, Ontario. He married Helen Caddy and they had two children, Susan and Mark. Professor Roper was educated at Peterborough Collegiate Institute; George Williams College in Chicago and the University of Chicago (B.A. 1938, M.A. 1939 and Ph.D. 1944). He served in the Canadian Army from 1944 to 1946. Professor Roper taught English at Yale University from 1939 to 1940; at the University of Chicago from 1941 to 1944 and in 1946; at Trinity College at the University of Toronto from 1946 to 1969 and at Trent University from 1969 to 1975. He researched and wrote extensively on a number of English Literature subjects including Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Robertson Davies. Roper was a founding member of the Melville Society and an advisor to the Centre for the Editing of Early Canadian Texts. He was a key figure in the building of the Shell Collection of Canadian Literature for Bata Library at Trent University.
Custodial history
This fonds was created by and in the custody of Professor Gordon Roper until it was donated to Trent University Archives.
Scope and content
This addition to the fonds consists of correspondence, clippings, research notes and bibliographies. Subjects include Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Herman Melville and the New England Transcendentalists. The correspondence is mainly between Roper and Davies.
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This fonds was donated by Professor Gordon Roper.
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This fonds is an addition to 87-002.
General note
Box 1
Folder
1 Correspondence from Robertson Davies to Gordon Roper. [Letters have been photocopied for research purposes. Sensitive areas are blacked out]
2 Correspondence from Moira Whalen to Gordon Roper
3 Correspondence from Pat Hume to Gordon Roper
4 Correspondence from Margaret Laurence to Gordon and Helen Roper
5 Correspondence to Gordon Roper - various sources
6 Correspondence from the Melville Society to Gordon Roper
7 Clippings Robertson Davies
8 Clippings Margaret Laurence
9 Notes and clippings on "Moby Dick"
10 Guides to reading Moby Dick
11 Melville's Use of Autobiographical Material in Redburn Masters Thesis by Gordon Roper Fall 1938
12 Melville Studies Tentative Bibliography 1847-1958
13 Melville Bibliography 1952-1957
14 A preliminary checklist of foreign language materials on the life and works of Melville
15 Annual Melville bibliography 1951, 1952-57
16 Melvilles world: An index and atlas of the geographic elements in the Chief prose writings of Herman Melville a paper written by Gilbert Ellithorpe 1949
17 Article by Gordon Roper "Before Moby Dick" in University of Chicago Magazine Oct. 1955, article by Charles Feidelson "The World of Melville"in Show Magazine July 1963
18 essays on Melville's work:
"Melville's Benito Cereno" H.H. Scudder
"Absolutism Melville's Pierre" Mary Dichmann
"Melville's Metaphysics of Evil" R.E. Watters
"Pierre Bayle and Moby Dick" Millicent Bell
"Melville and the Midwest" John W. Nichol
"Humour in Moby Dick" Joseph Jones
"Herman Melville as Office Seeker" H. Hayford and M Davis
"Readings of Melville's Moby Dick, 1851-1951" Gordon Roper
"The meanings of the White Whale" R. Watters
"Herman Melville's I and My Chimney" M Sealts
"Herman Melville through a Child's Eyes" Osborne
"Billy Bud The King's Yarn' N. Person
"Melville and Hawthorne" R. Stewart
"Melville and the Idea of Progress" G. Oliver
"Sun and Fire in Melville's Moby Dick" P. Miller
"Melville and the Shakers" M. Sealts
"A second look at Bartley" E. Oliver
"Poe, Hawthrone Melville: An essay in Sociological Criticism" H. Parkes
"The Significance of Melville's Agatha Letter" H. Hayford
"Malice Reconciled: A note on Melville's Billy Bud" C. Weir
"Melville's Picture of Emerson and Thoreau in the Confidence Man" G. Oliver
"Melville's contribution to English" J. Purcell
"Melville as Symbolist" R. Short
"Melville's Isolates" R. Watters
"Form as Function in Melville" N. Wright
"Herman Melville: A checklist of books and manuscripts in the collection of the New York Public Library" H. Cahoon
"Moby Dick and the Nineteenth Century Scene" W. Weathers
"Melville's Moby Dick 1851-1951" Gordon Roper
"Melville Defends Typee" Z. Haraszti
"A Mere Sale to effect, with letters of Herman Melville" J. Birss
"Herman Melville" C. Fadiman
"Shores and Sails in the South Seas" C. Allmon
"A vanishing People of the South Seas" J. Church
"Boston's Salt Water Preacher" R.Watters
"A note on the dating of Melville's Liverpool Voyage" Gordon Roper
19 "Color, Light and Shadow in Hawthorne's Fiction" W. Blair
"Hawthorne's Literary Borrowings" A. Turner
"Hawthorne's Usable Truth" N. Person
"Hawthrone and the Twilight of Romance" R. Pearce
"Nemesis and Hawthorne" O. Cargill
"That Inward Sphere: Notes on Hawthorne's Heart Imagery and Symbolism" J. Schroeder & "Hawthorne's Psychology of the Head and Heart" D. Ringe
"Hawthorne and the Concept of Sympathy" R. Maple & "Hawthorne on Romantic Love and the Status of Women" M. Cronin & "Dual Prospects of Evil in Rappaccinis Daughter" R. Male & "On the Dog chasing his own tail in Ethan Brad" C. Reilly
"The originality of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter" G. Roper
"The case of Tobias Pearson: Hawthorne and the Ambiguities" L. Dauner magazine article "New England Indian Summer"
20 "The English Controversy over Realism in Fiction, 1889-1895" W. Frieson
"The Case of Mark Twain's Wife" D. Ferguson
"Henry James and creativity: The logic of the particular case" S. Rosenbaum
"The spoils of Poynton: Revisions and Editions" S. Rosenbaum
"Comic pastoral: Henry James's The Europeans" P. Buitenhuis
21 partial memoirs by Gordon Roper
22 Reel-to-reel taped interview with Robertson Davies and Gordon Roper at Massey College 1967 NOTE: A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS INTERVIEW IS LOCATED IN 87-002.
23 Canadian Drama special issue on Robertson Davies
24 annotated date book 1933
25 collection of news paper articles written by Gordon Roper for the Peterborough Examiner
NOTE: In 2003, a file was added to this accession relating to a Symposium held in honour of Professor Gordon Roper in March, 1976. The Symposium was organized by Professor Michael Peterman, Trent University, and drew such speakers as George Parker, Douglas Lockhead, George Johnston, A.J.M. Smith and Robertson Davies.
Box 2
Folder
1 Melville Society Newsletters 1945-1987 (not complete)