The Beinecke Library is pleased to announce that the Robin Magowan Papers have recently been organized and described: Robin Magowan Papers YCAL MSS 612. The collection is open for research.

The collection documents the work and life of American poet, memoirist, and travel writer Robin Magowan. He studied at Exeter, Harvard (B. A.) and Columbia (M.A.) and Yale, where he earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature.  He taught at the University of Washington, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1986 he founded the journal Margin; he served as editor until 1990. He is the author of books in several genres, including: Lilac Cigarette in a Wish Cathedral, Memoirs of a Minotaur, And Other Voyages, Fabled Cities: Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Kings of the Road Portrait of Racers and Racing, Birds in a Forest Swaying, and The Rim of Dawn. 

The Robin Magowan Papers include correspondence, writings, notebooks, printed material, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other papers. Writings include manuscripts and typescripts of poems and prose, including drafts and corrected copies of Lilac Cigarette in a Wish Cathedral (University of South Carolina Press, 1998), Memoirs of a Minotaur (Story Line Press, 1999), and other works. Includes correspondence and other papers relating to Magowan’s uncle, James Merrill.

The Robin Magowan papers were donated to the Yale Collection of American Literature by the author (2007-2017). For additional information about this collection, contact Nancy Kuhl.