by
"Dutch" Leonard had an English and philosophy degree from the University of Detroit (Class of '50) and lived about 40 miles from the University of Michigan, but those schools are not the final resting place of his original manuscripts, correspondence and other literary treasures.
Neither is Oakland University in his home county.
Scholars and fans will be able to see original manuscripts, such as a 1953 one for a western novel, retitled and published the next year as the book at right.
Instead, the Elmore Leonard Collection will be housed in Columbia, S.C. "The life’s work of the man known as the master of American crime fiction now belongs to the University of South Carolina Libraries," says a news release posted Wednesday.
The complete Elmore Leonard archive includes more than 450 drafts of manuscripts, short stories and screenplays, typed on his signature yellow paper. It features all of his 45 novels, magazine pieces, appointment books, extensive research files, letters, photographs, director’s chairs from movie sets, his National Book Foundation award for distinguished contribution to American letters, his desk and typewriters.
There are even a few of his Hawaiian shirts and a pair of sneakers. In all, the collection includes 150 boxes.
Leonard, 87, died last Aug. 20 at his Bloomfield Township home.
At the campus in Columbia, S.C., where Leonard accepted a 2013 award, Dean of Libraries Tom McNally says in the release that the donated records include "outlines of how his books were written.”
"This is a research collection and it will lead to publication of books, articles and dissertations about Elmore Leonard.”
A few items are on display this month. The full collection will be available to researchers and fans in about 18 months after archiving, the university says.
Elmore's papers join those of crime novelists George V. Higgins and James Ellroy, as well as some of Ernest Hemingway's materials. The libraries dean says: "“It’s our intent to be the finest collection of crime fiction in the world.”
He met the Detroit-area writer and his son, novelist Peter Leonard of Birmingham, last year and showed them the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. The release quotes the younger Leonard as saying his father decided the next day to pick South Carolina over two other schools seeking his archives. "Hemingway and Higgins were the two influences in my father’s life,” Peter Leonard says.
