Virginia Spencer Carr (July 21, 1929 – April 10, 2012) was a biographer of

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...

and

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

. Carr was also a college professor for more than 25 years at

Columbus State University Columbus State University is a public university in Columbus, Georgia. Founded as Columbus College in 1958, the university was established and is administered by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. History The university w ...

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...

, and

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a Public university, public research university in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Biography

Virginia Spencer Carr was born in

West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lagoon. The populati ...

, on July 21, 1929. From the age of 12, she knew she wanted to someday be a writer. Carr received her master's degree from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

and doctorate degree from

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

in 1969. She was a professor of English at Columbus State University, until she agreed to chair the Department of English at Georgia State University in 1985. In 1993, she was named the John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor in English Letters, a position she held until her retirement in 2003. She died of liver disease at her home in

Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...

, on April 10, 2012. A collection of papers documenting Carr's research and correspondence for her biography of

is housed at the Rubenstein Library at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

Tennessee Williams

Carr first met

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

in the early 1970s when she was in the preparatory stages of writing her biography on

, ''The Lonely Hunter''. Over the years, Carr and Williams met many times to discuss McCullers as well as other literary luminaries of his social circle. As a result, a friendship ensued and Carr ultimately garnered the rights to write Williams' biography. Williams said about his first meeting with Carr:

Paul Bowles

In the last ten years of

' life, Carr formed a friendship with the reclusive, expatriate writer and composer, whom she had first met in Morocco in 1989 to interview him for a biography on Tennessee Williams that she was drafting (never completed). During her visit with Bowles, she asked him to sign a copy of a recently published biography on him, ''An Invisible Spectator'', which prompted Bowles to state: "Does this book have anything to do with me?" As a result of this comment, and the later suggestion by

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...

to postpone her work on Williams' biography and instead write one on Bowles, Carr shifted gears and began work on what would become ''Paul Bowles: A Life''. Bowles agreed to offer Carr his no-strings-attached cooperation on the work. The result - after 12 years, and 13 trips to visit him in Morocco, and arrangements she made for his medical treatment in Atlanta - was that Bowles gave her in person and in letters tantalizing revelations about his life and the people with whom he had associated. It was understood by Carr that she could not publish any of this information until he had died. She was able to read aloud to Bowles her completed work shortly before he died in 1999.

Awards, honors and distinctions

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

finalists for both ''The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers'' and ''Dos Passos: A Life'' * Senior

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

professor in Poland (1980–81) * Southern Historical Association’s Francis Butler Simkins Prize (''The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers'') * Council of Authors and Journalist Nonfiction Prize (''Dos Passos: A Life'') * John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor Emerita of English Letters at Georgia State University (1993–2003) * South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s John Hurt Fisher Award (2004) * Melon Fellowship recipient awarded by the

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

of the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

* Stanley J. Kahrl Fellowship awarded by

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

* Georgia Governor's Award in the Humanities * South Atlantic Modern Language Association's Honorary Member Award (2011) Oprah.com
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Selected works

Biographies

* ''A Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers'' with a foreword by

(

University of Georgia Press The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and la ...

, reprinted 2003) * ''Dos Passos: A Life'' (New York: Doubleday, 1984) * ''Paul Bowles: A Life'' (New York: Scribner, 2004; London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2005)

Other works

* ''Flowering Judas: Katherine Anne Porter (Women Writers: Text and Context),'' Editor (

Rutgers University Press Rutgers University Press (RUP) is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in New Brunswick, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University. History Rutgers University Press, a nonprofit academic publishing house operating in New B ...

, 1993) * ''Understanding Carson McCullers'' (University of South Carolina Press, reprinted 2005)

References

External links

Villanova UniversityVirginia Spencer Carr collection
a
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Emory UniversityMaterials about Virginia Spencer Carr in the Virginia Spencer Carr papers
held b
Special Collections, University of Delaware LibraryVirginia Spencer Carr, 1929-2012: A Biographer’s Work (Archived)
(online exhibition) a
Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carr, Virginia Spencer American biographers American women biographers Florida State University alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Harvard Fellows Columbus State University faculty Georgia State University faculty 1929 births 2012 deaths People from West Palm Beach, Florida American women academics 21st-century American women