Code Name Puritan: A Grolierite Spy

"Code Name Puritan: A Grolierite Spy." Grolier Club member Norman Holmes Pearson (1909-1975) changed the story of American literature, putting modernist poetry at its center, through his friendships with and work on behalf of poets like Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and H.D. But he wasn’t just a literary figure: during World War II he created and headed X-2, the OSS’s counterintelligence branch, and helped design (and recruit for) the Central Intelligence Agency. Pearson was also one of the architects of the field of American Studies and helped forge the alliance between universities, foundations and professional societies, and the national-security state in the 1950s and ‘60s. Finally, through his collecting and brokering, Pearson was one of the central figures in building the Yale Collection of American Literature and making Yale the center of modern literary study. Greg Barnhisel, Professor of English at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, will give a talk drawn from his new book, Code Name Puritan: Norman Holmes Pearson at the Nexus of Poetry, Espionage, and American Power (University of Chicago Press). Prof. Barnhisel will explore Pearson’s unique career as a literary fixer, secret agent, cultural diplomat, and academic bureaucrat. The talk will focus especially on Pearson’s lifelong devotion to books, book collecting, and archives. Greg Barnhisel is also the author of James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound (2005) and Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy (2015).

His Pearson biography will be available at the lecture for signing.

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