Extensive archive of papers from the collection of Shirley Arden, who worked as an assistant to Carl Sagan for several years in the 1970s and 1980s, playing a critical role in his success. Within the archive are twenty items signed by Sagan (including letters, notes, and cards), hundreds of pages of office paperwork (a few pages with notes handwritten by Sagan), photographs, books, and more.
An overview of the items included:
* A total of 20 letters, cards, and notes signed by Sagan; several are also signed by his wife, Ann Druyan. One ALS by Sagan inside a card, dated December 1977, in part: “This has been quite an extraordinary year! Without your help and support, initiative, intelligence and general commitment to excellence it might have been much less successful for me…My own senses of your remarkable abilities and dedication are confirmed every time I visit JPL or give a lecture at some university or corporation where you played some role in making the arrangements.” A lengthy ALS on a sheet of colorful Cosmos letterhead, circa 1980, in part: “This is my first letter on this somewhat gaudy stationery. We had a relaxing cruise & slept ridiculously long. As you will see, we had a fairly productive time on ‘Contact.’ One piece of good news: it looks as if RH will ‘somehow’ have ‘Cosmos’ in East Coast bookstores around Oct. 1.” A few of the letters request the transcription of audio from tapes. The cards include birthday and anniversary cards, and most are inscribed in Druyan’s hand and signed by both.
* Three signed books, including: a first edition of Cosmos, hardcover with dust jacket, signed and inscribed on the title page, “To Jenny, With fond good wishes and many thanks for your help with ‘Cosmos,’ Carl, Sept. 28, 1980”; a first edition of Comet, hardcover with dust jacket, signed and inscribed on the dedication page (which dedicates the book to Shirley Arden) by Druyan, “And we mean it! With our love to you and Kel, Annie,” and by Sagan, “Carl”; and a softcover Spanish edition of Cosmos, signed and inscribed on the title page, “Por Cara Shirley, Con amore y admiracion, Carl.” Also includes a copy of The Varieties of Scientific Experience, inscribed by Ann Druyan, as well as two small unsigned copies of a Japanese edition of Cosmos, a larger Japanese edition of Cosmos, and another Japanese space book.
* File folders dated from 1975 to 1981, containing hundreds of pages of typed daily notes and memoranda from Sagan’s office, including both originals and Xerox copies. These offer an interesting chronicle of Sagan’s day-to-day work during the most significant period of his career. The papers include call logs, daily schedules, travel itineraries and arrangements, questions to be answered, publication information, summaries of work being done, and so forth. Pages are occasionally annotated in Sagan’s hand, though these are few and far between; his notes typically provide direction on returning a call, arranging a meeting, responding to an invitation, or similar office matters.
* A quantity of photographs, including: two color candid snapshots of Sagan, and fifteen color and black-and-white publicity photos of the astronomer; more than 200 NASA and JPL photos from the Voyager and Viking programs, including both glossy Kodak photos and official lithographs; and a set of 40 color slides with audio tape entitled “The Vikings Explored Mars.”
* Other ephemera, including: several press kits and publications related to Voyager, Viking, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); two press kits for the Cosmos TV series; a bound treatment for a 13-episode series entitled “Man and the Cosmos,” the original title of what simply became ‘Cosmos’; a spiral-bound book of the first drafts of treatments for seven episodes of Nucleus, the unmade follow-up to Cosmos; eight Carl Sagan Productions Inc. business cards (six for Sagan as president, and two for Shirley Arden as his executive assistant); a 1985 copy of Sagan’s curriculum vitae; several typescripts for articles by Sagan; Cosmos wall calendars for 1981 and 1982; and a few magazines. In overall very good to fine condition.
Shirley Arden began working for Dr. Carl Sagan at Cornell in 1974, and spent weeks at a time working in his temporary office at JPL during the Viking landings on Mars in 1976. She handled everything from publishing contracts to travel arrangements during Sagan’s most illustrious years, including involvement with the wildly successful Cosmos television series. She moved with Carl and Ann Druyan to California for two years (1979 and 1980) for the production of Cosmos and the Voyager mission. In addition to being Sagan's longtime assistant, Arden was matron of honor in Carl and Ann’s wedding in 1981. Sagan and Druyan dedicated their 1985 book Comet to Arden, and Druyan again thanked her in the acknowledgments of 2007’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience, citing her as the original transcriber of Sagan’s Gifford Lectures. The office documents and Arden’s notebook of correspondence with Keay Davidson, also among the files in this archive, were exclusive primary sources for Davidson's biography of Sagan published in 2000. As a whole, this is a robust and historically significant archive stemming from one of the most exciting periods in the history of modern astronomy. Please contact RR Auction for a shipping quote.
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