A Guide to the Kenneth Roberts Letter to Kenneth Wood, 1943 Nov 27
A Collection in the
Clifton Waller Barrett Library
The Special Collections Department
Accession Number 7952-d
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Processed by: Special Collections Department
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
There are no restrictions.
Use Restrictions
See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.
Preferred Citation
Kenneth Roberts Letter to Kenneth Wood, Accession #7952-d, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
Acquisition Information
This collection was purchased on 1994 December 5.
Scope and Content Information
This collection contains a letter from Kenneth Roberts, Kennebunkport, Maine, to Kenneth Wood, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Roberts describes how he came up with his character Langdon Towne, "A character like Towne isn't built on any specific person. While writing Langdon Towne's experiences, I read the life of Paul Kane with care, studied the McKenney and Hall material and referred constantly to Catlin, with whose books I'd been familiar for years. I also went to Weinold Reiss, who does pastels of Blackfeet, for technical details. ...If you want to say Towne, during his Indian travels, was a combination of Kane and Catlin, I have no objection; but actually he was neither: he was Langdon Towne, a Portsmouth artist, motivated by the same ideas as (and covering somewhat the same ground covered by) Kane and Catlin."