Charlton Laird Papers

The Charlton Laird Papers primarily contains manuscripts (published and unpublished), an unpublished autobiography, I'd Rather Write (circa 1980), and personal and professional correspondence.

The manuscripts include scholarly and fictional, with both drafts and final copies, and speeches. Among the manuscripts are a proposed series of novels that were to follow Thunder of the River, with notes and comments by Helene Laird on the various plots in the initial stages of development.

The correspondence includes information on the Guide to Comparative Literature and Intercultural Relations, a book intended to provide a starting point for the study of influences upon English and American literature and culture. It was to be the result from the cooperative work of more than two hundred scholars and experts chosen for their competence in special fields. It began under the general direction of the Comparative Literature Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English, with Professor Arthur E. Christy, Columbia University, as editor, about 1939. Upon Christy's unexpected death in 1946, Laird assumed the editorship, but the project was plagued by delays and changes in sponsorship. Laird produced completed and edited the manuscript on two occasions, but each time the texts were outdated before details of publication could be worked out and was never published.

In addition, the collection contains correspondence with Sven Liljeblad, folklorist and linguist; Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Nevada author; Robert Gorrell, co-author and English professor at the University; Helen Carlson, author of Nevada Place Names, A Geographical Dictionary; and Max and Michaline Urban, friends and business partners with the Lairds in Max Urban & Co., Inc., promoting Latin American music in the U.S.