Gatsby to Garp: Our Doubt Is Our Passion, and Our Passion is Our Task. The Rest is the Madness of Art

Between 1973 and 1996 Carter Burden, a former trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum and onetime New York City councilman, assembled the greatest collection of modern American literature in private hands. In doing so, Burden revolutionized the market in modern first editions by paying record prices for copies in the best possible condition and with notable attributes such as authors’ annotations and presentation inscriptions. The depth and breadth of his holdings were truly extraordinary — spanning the twentieth century and including focused concentrations on such movements as the Lost Generation, the Beats, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Beginning in 1997, after Burden’s sudden death the previous year, his family has made a gift to the Morgan of twelve thousand volumes from his collection. Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection, on view from May 20 through September 7, brings together nearly one hundred outstanding works from the collection, including first editions, manuscripts, letters, and revised galley proofs. Authors featured in this unparalleled exhibition are some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated — William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, John Irving, Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Philip Roth, J. D. Salinger, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Updike, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright, among others.

Gatsby to Garp examines the vibrant American literary landscape of the twentieth century, a period that encompassed a remarkable explosion of creativity, and explores such topics as language and style, geography and setting, literary identity, and relationships among writers. By looking at the literary output of the entire century through a series of vignettes, connections emerge — sometimes unexpectedly. These writers explored the possibilities of authorial voice through stylistic experimentation, investigations of literary setting and examinations of psychological realism. The exhibition offers particular emphasis on the concept of 'firsts' — as it pertains to book production and format and to literary movements and experimentation. It will also include a number of notable authors’ photographs, including several from the Morgan’s unique collection of photographs of artists and writers by Irving Penn.

"The quality and scope of Carter Burden’s collection of twentieth century American literature is truly remarkable," said William M. Griswold, Director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "We are deeply grateful for the gift of his collection to the Morgan and extraordinarily pleased to present a selection of works in this exhibition. He had a singular eye for books of true distinction and also understood the importance of collecting works representative of major themes and movements in American letters."

Precursors
We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. — Henry James

Henry James’s importance to modern literature cannot be overstated. Deeply 3. Henry James rooted in the realist traditions of the previous century, his thematic concerns and stylistic developments are threaded through the soul of the twentieth. Gertrude Stein remarked that he was “the only nineteenth century writer who being an American felt the method of the twentieth century.” Carter Burden realized that he could not focus his collection on twentieth century writing without a foundation in Henry James, who, as a transitional figure, helps us contextualize what would come later. Along with William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, Henry James was one of the three cornerstones of Burden’s collection. James’s thematic preoccupations — slowing down narrative time and exploring the inner lives of his American characters in European settings — profoundly influenced later authors, and the writings of this expatriate are an essential reference point to keep in mind when examining twentieth century literature. Experimenting with language and form in new ways, the writers on view in the main gallery explore similar themes of identity and the interiority of fictional characters; geography and the impact of physical setting on identity and what it means to be American; and temporality, or the exploration of psychological time.

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Gatsby to Garp: Our Doubt Is Our Passion, and Our Passion is Our Task. The Rest is the Madness of Art

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