Publisher donates Merton trove

The renowned book editor and publisher who edited many of Thomas Merton’s works donated nearly $1 million worth of the late poet’s papers to the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky.

Robert Giroux said he was sorting through his New Jersey apartment last year when he discovered more than 3,000 pages of documents from the Roman Catholic monk and poet who died in 1968. Now 91, Giroux was a partner at publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He edited works by T.S. Eliot, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O’Connor and many others.

The documents donated by Giroux include drafts or proofs of five books, an unpublished book manuscript, letters between Merton and Giroux, and a 1940 rejection slip for an early novel.