SCOTT CORBETT PAPERS

de Grummond Children's Literature Collection
The University of Southern Mississippi

	Creator:	Scott Corbett
	Title:	Scott Corbett Papers
	Dates:	1959-1982
	Dates:	[bulk 1959-1977]
	Quantity:	3.90 cubic feet (13 boxes)
	Identification:	DG0223

Biographical Note

Scott Corbett was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on July 27, 1913, to Edward Roy Corbett and his wife, Hazel Marie Emanuelson. The Corbetts provided Scott with a fun and happy childhood, despite periodically moving to other parts of the country for the sake of Edward Corbett's health. They encouraged their son's love of reading, although he early exhibited an aversion to composition. Scott Corbett attended Kansas City Junior College between 1930 and 1932 and received a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1934. After graduation, he moved to New York City to work as a free-lance writer. He married Elizabeth Grosvenor Pierce, a social worker, on May 11, 1940, with whom he had a daughter, Florence Lee. Between 1943 and 1946, Corbett served as an army newspaper correspondent with the Forty-Second Infantry Division. He also worked as the last editor of Yank, a U.S. army magazine based in Paris.

Corbett returned to New York where he sold pieces to magazines, radio, and television. He published his first novel, The Reluctant Landlord, in 1950, drawing on his own experience as the landlord of a New York City apartment building. Enriched by the sale of its movie rights to Twentieth Century-Fox—which adapted it as Love Nest featuring Marilyn Monroe—Corbett moved his family to Cape Cod in 1951. He published four other novels for adults before penning his first children's book, Suzie Sneakers, in 1956. Based on his niece's visit to Cape Cod, the book convinced Corbett that he wanted to write children's books. The family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1957, where Corbett taught English at the Moses Brown School in the morning and wrote children's books in the afternoon.

Corbett published an average of two to three books a year between 1960 and 1985. He gave up teaching in 1965 to concentrate exclusively on writing. Corbett has published at least sixty-seven fiction and non-fiction books for children, but he is known best for two series of books. His twelve-volume "Trick" series employs a mixture of fantasy, realism, and humor to entice pre-adolescent boys previously reluctant to read. Its stories emphasize the need for people to get along with each other. Corbett's "What Makes It Work" books describe complex mechanical processes for beginning readers. He intentionally wrote on subjects he knew nothing about to avoid assuming too much prior knowledge on the part of the reader. Corbett also has written adventures, ghost stories, science fiction, and mysteries. Cutlass Island (1962) earned the Edgar Allen Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America as the best mystery written for children.

Scott Corbett passed away in 2006.

Sources:
Fourth Book of Junior Authors & Illustrators, ed. Doris de Montreville and Elizabeth D. Crawford (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1978), 99-100.
Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, ed. Laurie Collier and Joyce Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1993), 2:575-579.
Something About the Author, ed. Anne Commire (Detroit: Gale Research, 1986), 42:54-60.
Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, ed. Laura Standley Berger, 4th edition (Detroit: St. James Press, 1995), 240-242.

Scope and Content Note

The Scott Corbett Papers contain typescripts, galleys, manuscripts, illustrations, research notes, and correspondence created and accumulated by Scott Corbett between 1959 and 1982. Corbett's papers were created from his composition of thirty-four children's books. The material is organized into two series: books and correspondence.

The papers in the books series are arranged alphabetically by title and the material for each book is arranged chronologically in order of creation when known. The Scott Corbett Papers contain material for all twelve volumes of his "Trick" series, five of his "What Makes It Work" books, and seventeen other titles. Most of the items in the series are typescripts of early drafts of books with editorial remarks by Scott Corbett, typescripts edited and marked for publication by Corbett and his publishers, and both edited and unedited galleys. A few titles include research notes, character and plot sketches, or illustrations. Corbett usually composed a typescript of an entire work before revising the full text. The arrangement of the material for each book reflects this editorial sequence, but with two exceptions. Corbett apparently revised selected chapters of Run for the Money (1973) between thorough rewritings of the entire novel. Similarly, the early material for Take a Number (1974) has been arranged by chapter number because the early drafts of individual chapters were too disorganized to understand how they might have comprised distinct versions of the book.

The letters in the correspondence series were photocopied from the correspondence file of the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection and are arranged chronologically. They comprise Scott Corbett's correspondence with Lena de Grummond and the de Grummond Collection between 1968 and 1982. In his letters, Corbett details donations of material to the collection and offers tidbits of information on the production of some of his books.

Restrictions

Restrictions on Use

Noncirculating; available for research.

Copyright Restrictions

The collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code). Reproductions can be made only if they are to be used for "private study, scholarship, or research." It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials, other than that noted above.

Related Material

For illustrations for The Big Joke Game, see Mircea Vasiliu Papers (DG1009)

The Gioia Fiammenghi Papers (DG0321); The Victor Mays Papers (DG0684); The Judith Gwyn Brown Papers (DG0122)

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

(Identify the item and cite the series), Scott Corbett Papers, de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, University of Southern Mississippi Libraries.

Provenance

These papers were donated to the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection of the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries by Scott Corbett in 1968, 1972, 1979, and 1982.

Processing Information

Processed by Hans Rasmussen, October 2001. Encoded into EAD Version 1.0 by Danielle Bishop Stoulig. This finding aid is the product of a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Container Listing

Contact:
The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection
The University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive, #5148
Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001
(601) 266-4349
Comments and Questions

This page is maintained by the de Grummond Collection.
The University of Southern Mississippi
AA/EOE/ADAI