Collection-related Publications | ReCollections

Many artists admit that motion stimulates creativity. A somewhat surprising source of imaginative inspiration is the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). For many years it proved to be a dark but generous muse for Chester Gould, creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip. Each weekday Gould rode the train from his home in Woodstock, Illinois, to downtown Chicago where his office in Tribune Tower was located. Known for devising spectacularly nasty opposition for his square-peg hero, Gould frequently modeled his villains on the physical characteristics of the passengers sitting near him. One of his best-remembered baddies, Pruneface, was patterned after a horrifically scarred WWII vet. Other notorious mugs from Tracy’s Rogue’s Gallery were Flattop, Mrs. Prunface, the Brow, Pear Shape, the Mole and Little Face Finny.

Another proud graduate of the “CTA School of Artistic Expression” is Vinita Hampton Wright. Working as an editor at a Christian publishing house, Wright daily rode the train from her home in southside Hyde Park to suburban Wheaton. Already busy with various projects, she decided to use the travel time to finish her novel, Grace at Bender Springs (1999). After politely asking her usual commuting companions to ignore her as she concentrated, she opened her laptop and typed for the duration of the trip. When the book was published, she gave them free copies.

Reversing Wright’s trajectory was Dr. Ken Taylor. In the early 1960s Taylor rode the CTA from his Wheaton home into Chicago, where he served as Editorial Director of Moody Press. Desiring to produce a paraphrased Bible that appealed to young, modern eyes, Taylor, now concentrating on the Pauline epistles, set about performing his task during the morning journey. He writes: “…I sat with a Bible on one knee and a writing pad on the other. I tried to keep everything balanced and not let it fall over on my seatmate as he perused the morning paper.” And so, “…as the swaying train bumped along over the tracks,” he eventually completed The Living Bible, providing the foundational publication for the successful Tyndale House Publishers, international distributors of books, Bibles and videos.

The seven authors featured in Wheaton College’s Wade Center are well-known: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. The acquisition of manuscripts, both primary and secondary, surrounding these authors was masterminded by Dr. Clyde Kilby, professor of English. Through the 1960s and 1970s Kilby cultivated a wide-ranging network of relationships with collectors, authors and librarians, laboriously assembling the collection that provides the heart of the Wade Center. A lesser-known fact is that Kilby pursued material from other “mythopoeic” creators, most of which did not make it to Wheaton College. A spectacular example of “the-one-that-got-away” is Mervyn Peake (1911-68), English poet, illustrator and deviser of the gothic Gormenghast Trilogy. Peake, the son of medical missionaries to China, wrote of the ancient, gargantuan Gormenghast Castle inhabited by the mad Groan family and the subsequent birth and adventures of its royal heir, Titus. Peake intended to continue the narrative, but the series sadly ended with his early death from Parkinson’s Disease, leaving the third volume, Titus Alone, somewhat patchy. He counted among his admirers C.S. Lewis, who wrote at least two fan letters, and Orson Welles, who once bought cinematic rights, as did Gordon Sumner (also known as Sting) and Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. Gormenghast was finally filmed in 2000 by the BBC, starring Jonathan Rhy Meyers, with Christopher Lee and Fiona Shaw among its supporting cast. The somber, opulent tale was voted by British readers as one of the Top 100 Books, ranked with such luminaries as Orwell, Austen, Tolstoy and Dickens. Though Peake was a contemporary of Lewis and Tolkien, he was decidedly bourgeoisie in taste and temperament, and viewed with disdain these seemingly-elitist Oxford dons. Shortly after Peake’s death Kilby contacted his widow, Maeve, requesting an opportunity for discussion regarding the archiving of Peake’s papers at Wheaton College. Maeve responded that, due to her still-raw grief, she was unable to talk at that time. They eventually met in England during the summer of 1969. However, the plan was aborted and Peake’s papers remain largely uncollected under one roof, though the family continues seeking an archive. Kilby’s papers (SC-90), including his correspondence with Maeve, are housed in Special Collections at Wheaton College.