Guide to the W. K. Rose Papers, 1911-1970 (bulk 1940-1968)

Collection Summary

Biographical Note

William Kent Rose (1924-1968), professor of English, joined the Vassar faculty in 1953, after teaching at Stanford University, Williams College, and the University of California in Berkeley. Born William Rosenberg in Healdsburg, California, Rose, pursued Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Stanford University, before graduating with a doctorate from Cornell University in 1953. His doctoral dissertation on the English artist, novelist and social critic Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), a co-founder of the Vorticist movement, was the basis of his first publication, Wyndham Lewis at Cornell (1961), which led to Rose’s published collection of Lewis’ correspondence, The Letters of Wyndham Lewis (1963).

While a faculty member at Vassar, Rose frequently traveled to England to research the works of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Wyndham Lewis. At the time of his death, Rose was at work on a literary study tentatively called “The Men of 1914,” which focused on the literary revolution centered in London between 1909 and 1920. Awarded Guggenheim and Vassar Faculty Fellowships to support his research, Rose was diagnosed with a brain tumor in August of 1968, which brought a close to his research. Before his death, William K. Rose bequeathed funds to Vassar College for graduate fellowships in the arts, known as the Rose Fellowship. Rose’s partner was art historian Eugene A. Carroll, a fellow Vassar professor.

Scope and Content Note

The Papers of William K. Rose measure 10.6 cubic feet and date from 1914 - 1968, with the bulk of the material dating from 1940 - 1968. The papers document Rose’s study of modernist literature, Vorticism, the works of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and in particular, the writings of Wyndham Lewis, the subject of his doctoral research. The papers contain correspondence with publishers and literary figures, as Rose traveled to England frequently to research Wyndham Lewis and the literary cohorts with whom he was associated. Some files contain carbon copies of Rose’s outgoing letters. Correspondents in this series include Richard Aldington, Joseph Alsop, Agnes Bedford, Clive Bell, Quentin Bell, Saul Bellow, Elizabeth Bishop, Elizabeth Bowen, Kenneth Clark, Ivy Compton-Burnett, T.S. Eliot, Duncan Grant, Peggy Guggenheim, Granville Hicks, Robert Kennedy, Denise Levertov, Anne Wyndham Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, Dwight MacDonald, Archibald MacLeish, Marshall McLuhan, Marianne Moore, Iris Murdoch, Dorothy Pound (Mrs. Ezra Pound), Ezra Pound, Dame Edith Sitwell, Adlai Stevenson, Julian Symons, Eudora Welty, and Rebecca West. See the Papers of Eugene A. Carroll for correspondence (1960s) to and from Rose’s partner, Carroll.

Financial and Legal files hold documentation of Rose’s management of the family (Rosenberg) estate. Family correspondence from his noteworthy uncle, “Rube” Goldberg, is held in Series 1, Correspondence.

Subject files in the collection document Rose’s research efforts in his writing of The Letters of Wyndham Lewis. Notes and note cards document Rose’s research. Research notes also include documentation of Rose’s efforts at the time of his death to complete a literary study titled “The Men of 1914,” which focused on the literary revolution in London between 1909 and 1920. The series includes subject files arranged by W.K. Rose by name of literary figures, often containing periodicals from the early 1900s through the 1920s and 1960s, including the Hudson Review, James Joyce Quarterly, Paris Review, and Poetry Review. Subject files include an original prospectus announcing Sylvia Beach’s proposal for the original printing of Ulysses. The series files also include Rose’s writings as a college student and his teaching files from Vassar College. Writings include drafts of The Letters of Wyndham Lewis, poetry, essays, and article drafts about Wyndham Lewis and related topics of the period, as well as his Stanford University thesis and Cornell doctoral dissertation, published articles, and book reviews.

Printed materials include book reviews of The Letters of Wyndham Lewis, and articles and periodicals on or by Wyndham Lewis. The series also includes Rose’s collection of playbills, programs and exhibition catalogues documenting theater, music and dance performances Rose attended from his childhood years onward.

Ephemera in the collection includes an undated, framed invitation to a Blast (the Vorticist journal) dinner at Dieudonne Restaurant in the U.K. Photographs in the collection are primarily related to Rose’s literary research. See the Papers of Eugene Carroll for photographs of William K. Rose and Eugene Carroll’s friends, family, and documentation of foreign travel. Two audiotapes in the collection document interviews conducted by W.K. Rose, one with Yves Tinayre (1968), and one with Iris Murdoch (1967, see also in print form, subseries Published Works).

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Encoded by Laura Streett, 2019. Updated by Emma Gronbeck, October 2025.

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