Guide to the José Rodrigues Miguéis papers, 1874-1992

(bulk 1918-1980)

John Hay Library , Special Collections
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401-863-2146
email: hay@brown.edu

Published in 2013

Collection Overview

Title:	José Rodrigues Miguéis papers
Date range:	1874-1992, (bulk 1918-1980)
Creator:	Miguéis, José Rodrigues, 1901-1980
Extent:	19.5 linear feet (17 record center boxes, 2 document boxes, 2 oversize boxes, 1 shoebox)
Abstract:	The José Rodrigues Miguéis Papers comprise the author’s correspondence, literary manuscripts, interviews, diaries, calendars, notebooks, drawings, photographs, audio recordings, awards, clippings, personal library, and personal papers. It also includes work by others that relate to Miguéis, including literary reviews and criticism, adaptations of Miguéis’s work, drawings, and miscellaneous manuscripts. The collection includes materials from the late 1800s and extends until the 1990s.
Language of materials:	Portuguese, English, French, and Italian
Repository:	John Hay Library , Special Collections
Collection number:	Ms.89.7

Scope & content

The José Rodrigues Miguéis Papers comprise the author’s correspondence, literary manuscripts, interviews, diaries, calendars, notebooks, drawings, photographs, audio recordings, awards, clippings, personal library, and personal papers. It also includes work by others that relate to Miguéis, including literary reviews and criticism, adaptations of Miguéis’s work, drawings, and miscellaneous manuscripts. There is also a small amount of materials to and between his parents and siblings. The collection includes materials from the late 1800s and extends until the 1990s.

This collection also includes the Miguéis Library of approximately 2,000 books, devoted primarily to Portuguese and world literature and related literary criticism. These books are uncataloged but there is card-file for the library in the Reader Services area of the John Hay Library, and slips for the volumes are filed alphabetically by author. The books are housed in the John Hay Library and are arranged by accession number.

Series I. Correspondence This series contains a substantial amount of correspondence to and from José Miguéis which offers insight into the personal and professional life of the author. Notable correspondents include António Sérgio, Jorge de Sena, José Saramago, Aquilino Ribeiro, Raul Proença, Mário Neves, Manuel Mendes, David Ferreira, and John Kerr, Jr. It also includes condolences sent to his late wife Camila Campanella Miguéis after his death in 1980. It also contains a large collection of postcards many of which were written by and between his parents and siblings.

Series 2. Writings by Miguéis This series is a large collection of the author’s handwritten, typed, and published materials. It contains drafts of nearly every one of his publications, usually with substantial marginalia. These materials are useful for reconstructing the author’s creative process and timeline of publications and it spans a time period from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Series 3. Entrevistas This contains just one folder of interviews of Miguéis by various people, primarily for newspaper articles.

Series 4. Diaries, Calendars, and Notebooks This contains a series of notebooks dated from 1920 to 1980 that serve as diaries, memorandums, calendars, and general notebooks. Much of the material is mundane, such as contact information and to-do lists, but there are also various drafts of essays and stories.

Series 5. Drawings This is a collection of Miguéis’s drawings and illustrations, from small doodles to large compositions created between 1920s to 1970s. It contains primarily satirical caricatures. The media used includes pencil, charcoal, pen, paint, and pastels.

Series 6. Photographs This series contains a large collection of photographs that spans the life of the author and even includes some pictures of his parents and grandparents from the late 1800s. The photographs are divided in the following categories: Family, Friends and Colleagues, Pre-1935 photographs taken while Miguéis still lived in Portugal, Post-1935 photographs taken after he moved to the United States, Parties and Conferences, photographs solely of Miguéis, photographs taken by John Kerr, Jr. during a visit to the Miguéis home in 1968, and Miscellaneous.

Series 7. Audio This is a collection of audio recordings relating to Miguéis that includes cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, compact disks, and one 45rpm record. It contains interviews and speeches given at different events, as well as renditions of traditional Portuguese songs by Miguéis. Most of the recordings were done in the 1960s and 1970s.

Series 8. Awards This series contains the award given to Miguéis upon his induction into the Ordem Militar de Santiago da Espada, a Portuguese order of chivalry, in 1979, as well as three black-and-white photographs of the ceremony.

Section 9. Clippings The clippings are from newspapers and magazines and were saved by Miguéis. The folders in this collection are organized thematically, either by a person’s name, such as Ernest Hemingway, by a general heading, such as Political Activity in U.S., or by language. None of these saved clippings were written by Miguéis, but they offer a perspective into his personal interests.

Series 10. Personal Library The books, pamphlets, and periodicals in this series are part of the larger collection of approximately 2,000 books in the library owned by Miguéis noted above. These materials are stored in folders and boxes due to their fragile, thin, or weak condition. The books treat various subjects, but Portugal and Portuguese literature are principal among them. Nearly all of the periodicals and reprints are literary criticism. As with Clippings, none of the materials here were written by or are about Miguéis.

Series 11. Personal Documents Personal Documents comprises Miguéis’s miscellaneous paperwork that does not have any immediate connection to his literary career. Folder titles include: Maps, Menus, Copyright Applications, and Medications; other folders cover bank transactions, the author’s will, the sale of the family house, medical records, marriage certificates, and Miguéis’s curriculum vitae.

Series 12. Writings about Miguéis This series consists of writings by others about Miguéis. It is subdivided into three categories: General, which includes a dissertation about one of Miguéis’s novels, mentions of Miguéis in literary publications, and obituaries, among other things; Reviews, which contains book reviews of nearly all of Miguéis’s publications; and Clippings, which consists of various clippings, mainly from newspapers, that discuss Miguéis and his writings. These date from the early 1930s to the late 1970s.

Series 13. Adaptations by Others These materials are manuscript adaptations of Miguéis’s work for television, theater, and cinema.

Series 14. Manuscripts by Others This collection consists of a small number of literary manuscripts by others, including Mário Castro, Jaime Cortesão, Manuel de Sousa Pinto, and Raul Proença, among others. It is not known why they were in Miguéis’s possession.

Series 15. Drawings by Others Contains one whimsical caricature of Miguéis by José Lemos and other drawings by unknown artists.

Series 16. Miscellaneous This contains a variety of miscellaneous material and sheet music that apparently belonged to Miguéis’s sister, Irene.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Barbosa, Domingos Caldas, -1800
• Kerr, John Austin, 1934-
• Lisboa, Irene, 1892-1958
• Mendes, Manuel
• Neves, Mário, 1912-
• Proença, Raul
• Ribeiro, Aquilino, 1885-1963
• Saramago, José
• Sena, Jorge de
• Sérgio, António

Subject Organizations

• Ordem Militar de Santiago da Espada (Portugal).
• Prémio Camilo Castelo Branco.

Subject Topics

• Ambient sounds
• Authors, Portuguese--20th century
• Caricatures and cartoons.
• Fiction--20th century.
• Folk songs, Portuguese
• Language and Literature
• Portuguese fiction--20th century.
• Portuguese letters--20th century.
• Portuguese literature--20th century.

Geographical Names

• Portugal--In literature

Document Types

• Audiotapes
• Correspondence
• Drawings (Visual works)
• Drawings--20th century.
• Diaries--20th century.
• Doodles
• Erotic drawing
• Letters--20th century.
• Photographs--20th century.
• Postcards

Subject Topics

• Language and Literature

Arrangement

• Series I. Correspondence
• Series 2. Writings by Miguéis
• Series 3. Entrevistas
• Series 4. Diaries, Calendars, and Notebooks
• Series 5. Drawings
• Series 6. Photographs
• Series 7. Audio
• Series 8. Awards
• Section 9. Clippings
• Series 10. Personal Library
• Series 11. Personal Documents
• Series 12. Writings about Miguéis
• Series 13. Adaptations by Others
• Series 14. Manuscripts by Others
• Series 15. Drawings by Others
• Series 16. Miscellaneous

Biographical Note

José Miguéis was a 20th century Portuguese novelist, essayist, journalist, illustrator, professor, and translator. He was born to Manuel Maria Miguéis Pombo and Maria Adelaide Rodrigues Miguéis on December 9, 1901 in Lisbon, Portugal and spent the majority of his childhood in the Lisbon area, which would serve as the setting for much of his later fiction. He had two older siblings, Fernando Rodrigues Miguéis (1895-1918), and Irene Rodrigues Miguéis (1898-1966). As a young man Miguéis briefly pursued a career in law, but soon gave this up and dedicated himself wholly to literature and pedagogy.

In 1921, Miguéis became involved with Seara Nova, a liberal civic action group of writers and intellectuals. Over the next decade, he published writings and illustrations in the group’s eponymous politico-literary periodical. During this time, he worked alongside other important members of Seara Nova, including Raul Proença, Jaime Cortesão, Aquilino Ribeiro, António Sérgio, Raul Brandão, Câmara Reys, José de Azeredo Perdigão, José Gomes Ferreira, David Ferreira, and Irene Lisboa. Miguéis temporarily severed his connections with Seara Nova in 1931 due to internal polemic.

In the early 1930s, Miguéis submitted pieces to various Portuguese newspapers and periodicals. He met and married his first wife, Pesea Cogan Portnoi (“Pola”), in 1932, and earned a degree in Pedagogy from the University of Brussels in 1933. His political opinions soon brought him into conflict with the rising fascist party, Estado Novo, and in 1935 he left Portugal for the United States, where he would spend the rest of his life except for the occasional brief return to Portugal. Pola did not accompany Miguéis to America.

Once in the United States, Miguéis began writing more essays and temporarily renewed his connection to Seara Nova. This relationship would not last long, however, as Miguies was criticized by the group in 1940 for an article he had published in a rival periodical. That same year, he was married to Camila Pitta Campanella after previously divorcing his first wife. He became an American citizen in 1942 and the couple adopted their daughter Patricia ("Patty") in 1944 when she was four years old. During the years that followed, Miguéis worked as a staff writer for the Portuguese-American edition of Reader’s Digest and wrote several non-fiction accounts of previous personal experiences.

The period from 1945 to 1955 was relatively quiet for Miguéis. He suffered a cerebral infection, recovered, and traveled to Brazil and Portugal. In 1956 he renewed his literary activity with the publication of several articles and a novelette, and the following four years may be considered his major publishing phase. In 1959, he won the Camilo Castelo Branco Prize, the most prestigious Portuguese literary award, which only increased the attention he received from editors and readers, and in 1961 he was granted membership to the Hispanic Society of America.

Miguéis returned to Portugal in 1963 and published prolifically over the course of the next year. At the end of a year, however, he once again returned to the United States. He published relatively little material during the next few years, and then renewed his production in 1968 with a long series of articles for a Lisbon newspaper. In 1976 he became a member of the Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa and in 1979 he was accepted to the Ordem Militar de Santiago da Espada, a Portuguese order of chivalry. He died October 27, 1980 in New York City.

For a more detailed biography of Miguéis click here.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Use of the materials:	Permission to publish must be obtained from Onésimo Almeida, Professor Emeritus of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.
Alternate form:	The entire collection was microfilmed with the exception of the photographs, postcards, and drawings. The record for the microfilm is: José Rodrigues Miguéis papers [microform], Ms. 89.8. The microfilm version is 22 positive reels and 22 negative reels, arranged by Correspondence (C1-10); Clippings (1-2); Translations (T-1); Manuscripts (M1-8); and Esquife (E1).
Preferred citation:	Jose Rodrigues Migueis Papers, Ms. 89.7, Brown University Library.
Contact information:	John Hay Library , Special Collections Box A Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Tel: 401-863-2146 email: hay@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	This collection was donated by Camila Campanella Migueis in 1983.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Taylor Leigh.
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2013-08-05
Descriptive rules:	Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Related material:	This collection also includes the Miguéis Library of around 2,000 books, devoted primarily to Portuguese and world literature and related literary criticism. These books are uncataloged as of July 2013 but there is card-file for the Miguéis Library in the Reader Services area of the John Hay Library, and slips for the volumes are filed alphabetically by author. The books are housed in the John Hay Library and are arranged by accession number.
Location/Existence of copies:	The entire collection was microfilmed with the exception of the photographs, postcards, and drawings. The record for the microfilm is: José Rodrigues Miguéis papers [microform], Ms. 89.8. The microfilm version is 22 positive reels and 22 negative reels, arranged by Correspondence (C1-10); Clippings (1-2); Translations (T-1); Manuscripts (M1-8); and Esquife (E1).
Bibliography:	Sources used for biographical information: Neves, Mario. Jose Rodrigues Migueis: Vida e obra. Lisbon: Editorial Caminho, 1990. Kerr, Jr., John Austin. Migueis: To the Seventh Decade. Oxford, Mississippi: Romance Monographs, Inc., 1977.

Inventory

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