When Professor Tim Page isn't teaching at USC Annenberg or USC's Thornton School of Music, his time is often dedicated to the work of writer Dawn Powell, whose life and career he has researched and written about since 1991.
In 2012, Page announced that he would sell his personal collection of Powell's diaries, and recently reached an agreement with Columbia University Libraries to make the diaries a permanent collection in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The diaries will join the current collection of manuscripts, artwork, and letters that document Powell's life in New York City in the mid-20th century.
"I am delighted that the entire Dawn Powell archive will be housed at the Columbia Rare Books and Manuscript Library,” Page said in a Columbia University Libraries news release. “I think it would make the author very happy to know that her effects - diaries, photographs, manuscripts, art works and various materials - will be in her beloved New York City forever.”
Dawn Powell was an author and playwright who wrote more than 15 novels, 10 plays and many book reviews, short stories and poems in her lifetime, though some were published posthumously, and many were already out of print by the time of her death in 1965.
However, the research and publications of Page have revived considerable interest in Powell's work in recent decades. The addition of Powell's diaries to the permanent collection will also further research on her life and career, bringing Powell “back to the public's attention,” according to Michael Ryan, director of the Rare Books & Manuscript Library.
In addition to collecting, editing, and annotating works written by Powell, Page wrote “Dawn Powell: A Biography” in 1998, and is also a Pulitzer prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post.
