Not long after being hired to run the Ransom Center, Dr. Staley learned that the archives of Stuart Gilbert, Joyce’s translator and friend, were available. According to The New Yorker, the papers, which cost the Ransom Center $265,000, came with an unexpected find: Joyce’s handwritten edits of the first chapter of “Finnegans Wake.” Dr. Staley estimated that those pages alone were worth $750,000.
In the 25 years that followed, he acquired the papers of dozens of literary luminaries, including Doris Lessing, Jorge Luis Borges, J.M. Coetzee, Penelope Lively and Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as the archives of Robert De Niro and the Life magazine photojournalist David Douglas Duncan. Dr. Staley also continued to teach English.
When Dr. Staley visited the playwright Tom Stoppard at his home in England, he found his papers scattered in his study and in another building on his property. As Dr. Staley recalled to The Times, Mr. Stoppard told him, “What you want is mostly stuff I would throw away: notes on this and that.” But there were also drafts of his plays, notes on revisions and drawings of stage sets.
On another trip, to Arthur Miller’s house in Connecticut, Dr. Staley learned that in a box Miller thought had been filled with roofing nails, he had discovered valuable notebooks and a short story — the very type of items that help fill an archive. Although parts of Miller’s archive had been at the Ransom Center for decades, a formal deal to acquire the collection, for $2.7 million, was not made until 2017.
In addition to his son Tim, Dr. Staley is survived by his wife, Carolyn (O’Brien) Staley, known as Muffi; his daughters, Carrie Staley and Mary Wheeler; another son, Tom Jr.; and six grandchildren.
Dr. Staley’s aggressive and successful pursuit of so many literary stars’ papers suggested to him that he had guided the Ransom Center to victories in a state that loves to think big.
“People take a special pride here in winners,” he told The New Yorker. “They like success.”
Source: NY Times
