The New York Public Library is opening its Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne archive to the public next month.
In a news release, the library said that the archive “is poised to spark a new wave of scholarship, enriching the public’s understanding of the lives and work of writers whose far-reaching influence is strongly felt today.”
Didion and Dunne were both journalists when they married in 1964. Didion went on to publish more than 15 books, including the seminal works Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Play It as It Lays, while Dunne would win praise for books including The Studio and Monster. They co-wrote the screenplays for films such as The Panic in Needle Park and A Star Is Born.
Dunne died in 2003; Didion wrote about the loss in The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion died in 2021. Knopf announced earlier this month that it would posthumously publish her Notes to John, a series of reports addressed to her husband about sessions with a psychiatrist. The manuscript was discovered in a filing cabinet after Didion’s death.
The couple’s archive, the library says, “contains candid photos of Didion and Dunne’s childhoods and early careers, courtship and marriage, family and social life; drafts of over two dozen co-written screenplays that reveal their collaborative writing and editing process; and correspondence spanning six decades with important figures.”
Julie Golia, the senior manuscripts curator at the NYPL, said in a statement, “The opening of this rich, expansive, and deeply personal collection will spark a new generation of scholarship on Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, their extraordinary lives and careers, and their impact on American literature, journalism, and popular culture.”
The archive will open on March 26.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
