American poet, playwright, painter, and publisher. The Charles Henri Ford archive contains correspondence, manuscripts, ephemera, art works, and newspaper clippings relating to himself, his companion, Pavel Tchelitchew, and a large circle of friends, artists, and literary figures.

Charles Henri Ford, the American poet, playwright, publisher and painter, was born Feb. 10, 1910, in Hazelhurst, Mississippi and died in 2002. Ford's early and avid interest in poetry prompted him to publish a magazine while he was still a young man in Mississippi. Blues: A Magazine of new rhythms attracted submissions from well-known writers such as Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams, as well as from new voices, James Farrell, Erskine Caldwell and Paul Bowles. Through the magazine Ford struck up a literary conversation with Parker Tyler, whose descriptions of bohemian life in New York's Greenwich Village drew Ford to New York. Ford turned their correspondence into the collaborative novel, Young and evil (Obelisk Press, 1933), described by Michael Duncan as “a fragmented record of cruising, drag balls and brittle repartee.” ( Art Forum, p.25) It was when Young and evil was published that Ford re-stated his birthdate as 1913 to become (in his words) “younger and more evil.” (Information from MaryLynn Broe, Grinnell College in a scholar note dated 27 March 1998 in Getty Research Library files.) Michael Duncan lists Ford's birthdate as 1908 in his essay on Ford in Art Forum, 41, no.5, Jan. 2003, p. 25.

ca. 40 linear ft. (79 boxes, 6 flat file folders )

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