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Letters of John Cook Wyllie to Fillmore Norfleet, 1933-1934, Accession #8809-l , Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
These items were given to the University of Virginia Library on May 3, 1994, by Mrs. Fillmore Norfleet, Charlottesville, Virginia.
This collection consists of the personal and academic correspondence of John Cook Wyllie and Fillmore Norfleet, 6 items, 1933-1934, written during Norfleet's third year of study in France in pursuit of two graduate degrees in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Virginia. Norfleet was researching the life of Balthazar Fevret de Saint Memin in his home city of Dijon after completing his study of his American career. Because of continual frustration in his research of Saint Memin, John Cook Wyllie, who was studying at the Biblioteque Nationale the summer and fall of 1933, suggested that Norfleet try another topic for his dissertation, the poet, prose satirist, and author of Argenis and The Satyricon , John Barclay (1582- 1621).
One interesting letter of Wyllie's, November 4, 1933, describes the results of some of his own research in France and has attached an eight page handwritten document by Wyllie entitled, "What I Know About Barclay." In another letter, November 28, 1933, written shortly before Wyllie left France, he mentions President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his former residence and acquaintances in the West Indies, and repeats his offers of assistance.
In a third letter, January 6, 1934, Rehoboth, Delaware, Wyllie comments about Julien Green's books, "On the way back I read Mont-Cinere (Avarice House) , and since arriving here I have read The Closed Garden . The 1st I read in France, the 2nd in England. I didn't like them. They are abnormal and unpleasant. Are the others better? These are the 1st things of Green's I have read. I should be ashamed of this probably." Also present is a letter in French to Fillmore Norfleet from an unidentified correspondent who is learning to speak and write English, postmarked [October 17, 1933].