262:...to expunge from the idea of craftsmanship much that is precious, self-asserting, and merely silly, and to get free of all such ideas of 'fine printing', 'art', and 'design'; to print—by hand of course—the classics of our literature with integrity, simplicity, and skill, and with the best materials available; to make new and immediate those texts that endure but that in the passage of time inevitably grow tarnished and deserve in every new generation to be translated and to be printed still again. This means, of course, conceiving them anew in the language of one’s own time—but with neither eccentricity, self-expressiveness, nor a radical break with whatever subtle tradition is present—not designing them, but letting their beauty arise inevitably and uniquely from the flawless skill of true craftsmanship, from the very making of the book itself.
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their simplicity and elegance. He printed books off and on for close to fifty years, and today they are much sought after by those who love fine printing, collectors, and dealers in rare books. The Getty
Research Center holds the archives of the venture and summarizes its history: "The Banyan Press was a small press founded in 1946 by Claude Fredericks and Milton Saul. In 1948 they moved their operation, a single 10 inch by 14 inch Golding press, to Pawlet, Vermont. Most of the book design and press work was done by Fredericks. Three or four items were designed by Saul, and one by Harry Prickett. Saul did most of the typesetting. All type was set by hand except for one item, the introduction to
177:, on October 14, 1923. A precocious and lonely child, he began keeping a diary when he was eight years old. His mother took him to weekly Sunday afternoon picture shows and he listened to broadcasts of plays and symphony concerts on the radio. She took him on trips to New York, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Europe in the 1930s.
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command seeks to create the reality of an hour, an evening, a day. There is a good deal of actual narrative—that of the writer’s own life and also that of the lives of innumerable other people—but also a great deal of introspection that seeks to understand the narrative and what it says about the nature of life itself.
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It is a book that is peopled with literally thousands of people but documents a life often passed in monkish solitude. At times the journal is compulsively detailed about the merest minutiae of daily life but at other times consciously and with as much art as the writer at any given moment has at his
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at New York
University and also at the Research Institute of the Getty Center in Los Angeles. There was a large exhibition of Fredericks's entire production on display at The Fales Library in 1985. In his introduction to the exhibition, Frank Walker, Curator at The Fales, wrote: “The Banyan Press is
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In 1947, in a basement butcher-shop on East 29th Street, he launched the Banyan Press, named for the tree that re-roots itself from its own branches. Almost at once, he developed a distinguished reputation. He printed books and broadsides that are in themselves small works of art, often stunning in
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describes it as "a project of self-knowledge tirelessly pursued". The manuscript, then unfinished and consisting of more than 30 million words was purchased by the Getty
Research Institute at the Getty Center in Los Angeles in 1988. In anticipation of publication, The Stinehour Press produced a
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His courses there—among them Homer, Virgil & Dante; Poetic Idiom; Shakespeare; Japanese Novels; Theatrical Idiom; and
Religious Experience—were, notably at the time, taught not in a classroom, but usually in a living room in one of the old white clapboard student houses scattered about the
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proposed publication, Fredericks declined because he had written candidly about so many people still living. When he changed his mind years later, Giroux thought it too late to interest the reading public in figures no longer current: "The moment's passed. Now who knows who
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Fredericks' personal diary is notable for its length and continuity. He began keeping a journal in 1932 when he was eight years old and wrote for more than eighty years, with his last entries dated a week before his death; it fills some 65,000 pages.
1132:, Los Angeles. Archive comprises a complete set of the publications, primarily poetry, and other printed matter from The Banyan Press and Claude Fredericks (1946-1986). Also includes related correspondence, manuscripts, account books, and reviews.
362:, in 1948 Fredericks began to write plays, more than a dozen over the next thirty years. Many received New York productions; several others were left unfinished. His three most successful plays were performed off-Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Fredericks decided that printing books by hand would allow him to make a living without worrying about having his own writings published. It suited his passion for writing and for books as physical objects. In 1946, he worked for a short time at
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In 1944, he moved to New York, settled into a large, empty room at 35 East 65th Street, and began to study on his own. He continued to maintain his journal and wrote stories and poems. To these he added several radio plays and a short novel,
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In 1995 Fredericks, with the collaboration of Marc
Harrington, his former student at Bennington, began editing the journal for publication. Before his death, Fredericks had participated in editing his journals as far as 1944.
469:, famous for the non-traditional, even radical, liberal-arts education it offered its students. He could read many of the works he taught in their original languages: Latin, Greek, and Japanese.
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249:(1947), which was printed from Linotype. After 1950 Fredericks ran the press alone under his own name, except for the period 1975-1978, when he was assisted by David Beeken."
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Fredericks had a romantic relationship in the early 1950s with James
Merrill and they remained lifelong friends. Merrill wrote about the relationship in his 1993 memoir
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one of the finest of 20th
Century small presses in the classic purity of its design, the quality of its execution, and the excellence of the work it chose to publish."
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457:: "the two plays talk themselves into a kind of numbing dullness." He called them "the longest short plays to visit Off Broadway in many a balmy April."
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The Banyan Press catalog is far-ranging and consists largely of unpublished works, printed by hand in limited editions, by well-known writers such as
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Fredericks took several trips abroad as an adult. He visited Europe in 1950–52 with James
Merrill and Japan in 1966. He lived in Rome in 1983–84.
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and other of
Fredericks's writings as well as preserving—as a museum, library, and retreat center—the writer's house and land in Pawlet, Vermont.
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is a detailed depiction of their intimate life together. They married in 2010. Harrington is the director of the Claude
Fredericks Foundation.
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Common. Fredericks also taught students in tutorials usually held in his second-floor corner office in Commons Building at Bennington.
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In the late 1940s Fredericks founded Banyan Press, which for decades issued hand-set limited editions by writers such as
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In 2010, the Claude Fredericks Foundation was incorporated with the two-fold purpose of publishing the entire
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Fredericks, who had written thousands of poems, published a small collection of 141 of them in
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495:(2013), winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, to him. Other students included: novelist
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Many university libraries and public libraries, including the Rare Book Room of The
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks Volume Three Part Two: From Maine to Mexico (1943)
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks Volume One Part Two : Springfield (1940-1941)
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in 2005, drawing on his journals where he had recorded his drafts and revisions.
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Marc Harrington began living with Fredericks in 1995. The last 15,000 pages of
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks Volume One Part One: Springfield (1932-1939)
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks: Volume Two Part One: Cambridge (1941-1942)
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks Volume Three Part One: Cambridge (1943)
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The Journal of Claude Fredericks: Volume Two Part Two: Cambridge (1942)
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184:, where he studied Greek with John Huston Finley Jr., Sanskrit with
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Washington University Libraries, Department of Special Collections
1060:"Claude Fredericks Collection of James Merrill Papers, 1950-1994"
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Fredericks died at home in Pawlet, Vermont, on January 11, 2013.
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in 1954, and the Artists Theatre, directed by Herbert Machiz and
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865:"Banyan Press archive, 1946-1986: Biographical/Historical Note"
241:’s Gemor Press and learned some of the rudiments of printing.
533:. Colleagues of Fredericks at Bennington included: novelists
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Fredericks's students at Bennington included the novelist
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in a translation by Fredericks. In 1962, writing in the
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was not published until 2012, when it appeared alongside
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After moving to a beautiful Greek Revival farmhouse in
110:(October 14, 1923 – January 11, 2013) was an American
843:"Finding aid for the Banyan Press archive, 1946-1986"
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The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
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1111:This article contains material copied from an
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338:, and other writers from earlier centuries.
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483:, who modeled a character on Fredericks in
220:. He left college after a year and a half.
134:for more than 30 years, from 1961 to 1992.
77:The Journal of Claude Fredericks: 1932-2012
60:Diarist, teacher, printer, playwright, poet
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425:In 1959, the Living Theater presented
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886:Atkinson, Brooks (November 7, 1959).
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465:In 1961 Fredericks began to teach at
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406:in its issue for the winter of 1969.
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1231:21st-century American LGBTQ people
1226:Writers from Springfield, Missouri
1176:21st-century American male writers
1171:20th-century American male writers
845:. The Online Archive of California
614:prospectus in 1997 that described
180:In 1941, at seventeen, he entered
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678:A Summer Ghost: a play in one act
398:, edited by Robert Corrigan, and
953:from the original on 2014-01-07.
684:Robert W. Corrigan, ed. (1967).
680:. New York: Hill and Wang. 1965;
662:The Journal of Claude Fredericks
394:appeared in the first volume of
151:The Journal of Claude Fredericks
122:, writer, and teacher. He was a
1126:Banyan Press archive, 1946-1986
1089:"More Adventures of a Gay Roué"
912:Gelb, Arthur (April 27, 1962).
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1186:20th-century American diarists
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969:Anolik, Lili (May 28, 2019).
252:In the January 1979 issue of
1093:The Gay & Lesbian Review
947:Online Archive of California
688:. New York: Hill & Wang.
573:, and Peter Golub, painters
476:He left Bennington in 1992.
16:American poet and playwright
1166:21st-century American poets
1161:20th-century American poets
1024:James Merrill: Life and Art
995:Tartt, Donna (2013-10-22).
518:Thomas Matthews, editor of
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1216:LGBTQ people from Missouri
1191:Bennington College faculty
1087:Mack, Bob (26 June 2014).
867:. Getty Research Institute
511:, editor and publisher of
247:The Poetry Center Presents
1221:LGBTQ people from Vermont
1181:American company founders
1130:Getty Research Institute
1040:. The Manchester Journal
1022:Hammer, Langdon (2015).
188:, and Oriental Art with
169:Early life and education
914:"Theatre: 'Charlatans'"
445:panned a production of
343:New York Public Library
192:. His friends included
173:Fredericks was born in
163:Los Angeles, California
1211:Harvard College alumni
1196:Book publishing people
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318:, as well as works by
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529:, and philanthropist
489:(1992) and dedicated
418:in a volume entitled
400:The Bennington Review
374:produced Fredericks'
175:Springfield, Missouri
35:Springfield, Missouri
1206:American gay writers
432:Tonight We Improvise
597:In the 1960s, when
551:Stanley Edgar Hyman
549:, literary critics
292:Florine Stettheimer
218:Fanny Peabody Mason
186:Walter Eugene Clark
686:New American Plays
655:A Different Person
521:The Wine Spectator
486:The Secret History
467:Bennington College
396:New American Plays
390:in 1961. In 1965,
380:John Bernard Myers
372:The Living Theatre
128:Bennington College
1008:978-0-316-24867-9
1001:. Little, Brown.
804:. Xlibris. 2011.
786:. Xlibris. 2011.
768:. Xlibris. 2009.
750:. Xlibris. 2009.
732:. Xlibris. 2005.
714:. Xlibris. 2004.
696:. Xlibris. 2004.
514:The New Criterion
497:Bret Easton Ellis
447:On Circe's Island
416:On Circe’s Island
404:On Circe’s Island
384:On Circe's Island
336:Francis of Assisi
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616:The Journal
571:Henry Brant
481:Donna Tartt
443:Arthur Gelb
420:Three Plays
382:, produced
364:Julian Beck
226:The Wedding
65:Nationality
1140:Categories
820:References
455:Charlatans
354:Playwright
320:John Donne
288:André Gide
255:Fine Print
198:John Simon
194:May Sarton
116:playwright
57:Occupation
525:activist
402:included
239:AnaĂŻs Nin
210:Alan Rich
124:professor
951:Archived
589:Writings
499:, poets
68:American
1069:July 8,
980:July 7,
975:Esquire
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871:July 7,
640:Journal
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