PCL MS 146 Lucetta L. Hynnes Collection

Lucetta L. Hynnes is a contemporary American author of historical romance novels. The manuscript of one of her novels, a set of proofs and a package of correspondence between herself and her editor comprise the core of the collection.

Lucetta L. Hynnes transferred her manuscripts to the Browne Popular Culture Library, Bowling Green State University, in August 1996. The collection is open for research, but photocopying or other duplication of manuscripts must comply with applicable copyright laws. This register was complied by Kirk Richardson under the supervision of Jean Geist, Popular Culture Library Associate II in November 1996 and updated in September 2009 by Patricia Falk.

Lucetta L. Hynnes was born on August 25, 1905 in the Town of Hyde Park, City of Chicago, Ill. She has written that at that time "the instruction of children at home was as important as school. At the age of nine I could read anything. My father bought two copies of The Saturday Evening Post, one for him and one for me. Then, the Chicago Public Library built a branch three blocks from where we lived. The open shelves held all of the English, French and Russian classics; I never stopped reading." After graduating from a Catholic Girls High School, she gave piano lessons for two years until the great Depression and the death of her father caused her and her mother to move. Her mother, Helen Shogren Light, took her to a resort town in Wisconsin in 1932, where living could be managed. They returned to Chicago five years later. Once back, Lucetta found a man "she was willing to put up with" and married him, Robert K. Hynnes, in 1943. In 1949 she and her husband moved to Wisconsin Dells, WI, two hundred miles north of Chicago, where they lived for the rest of their lives. For more than twenty years, together they worked out of a real estate office which they had had built onto their house. When Robert retired, Lucetta L. Hynnes began using the real estate office for her writing purposes. She has said that she does not make drafts, an outline, and the synopsis is written after the manuscript is completed. She "carries the story in [her] mind watching the characters develop -- the characters make the plot -- and the ending may not be what [she] planned in the beginning."

Lucetta Hynnes credits the ideas for her books to both her imagination and her ability to remember people, ideas, and places with absolute certainty and recollection. Henry James is the author she most admires.

Lucetta Hynnes began her writing career with the publication of A Gift In Secret (1986). Two years later she followed with a second book, Minor Royalty (1988). Lucetta Hynnes has written under the pseudonym Charlotte Light.

The Lucetta L. Hynnes Collection houses the manuscript and set of proofs for her second novel, Minor Royalty, as well as correspondence between her and her editor. The letters are the strength of this collection for, containing information pertinent to the business and editorial aspects of publication, they address hidden aspects of the writing and publishing process that are normally left invisible but always present between the lines.

Researchers interested in the historical romance novel and in the process of publication will find this collection useful.

Correspondence

Series

Editorial Correspondence

1986-1987

Letters to/from Veronica Mixon

Literary Production

Series

Manuscripts, Literary

1988

Arranged chronologically by date of published work

Typed manuscript, with handwritten corrections by the editors