Walter and Dorothy Donnelly family papers

Walter Donnelly and Dorothy Boillotat Donnelly collected thousands of fine books between 1920-1994, for their family library at 612 Lawrence Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Walter (1900-1981) was Editor of the University of Michigan Press when he retired in 1970. Dorothy (1903-1994) was an award-winning poet. They have three sons, Jerome, Stephen, and Denis.

In 1931 Dorothy and Walter were married, Dorothy completed her Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan, and she won the Avery Hopwood Contest. The $1,500 prize enabled the couple to live in France and Italy for a time. Dorothy wrote several acclaimed books of poetry as well as numerous articles for the magazine transition (always spelled in the lower case), publishing work by writers such as Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway and Carl Jung. Eugene Jolas, the French editor of transition, wrote Dorothy in 1931, "You are the only one in America whose writing seems to me to be going in the right direction."

Walter also published some poetry and wrote plays with playwright and screenwriter Paul Osborn when the two were in college at the University of Michigan. After living in Greenwich Village and Paris, he returned to Ann Arbor to accept a position at the University of Michigan editing Museum Publications as well as doing editorial work for the Press.

The Donnelly's had a keen interest in the printing arts. Collected materials include examples from the best paper-makers, type designers, typographers, book binders, and printers as well as those artists involved in book illustrations. Notable in the collection are numerous publications of The Typophiles, a small group of graphic arts professionals based in New York, including luminaries like Bruce Rogers and Frederic W. Goudy. The Typophiles, who began meeting around 1932, are still meeting and publishing today.