The Code of the West - Related material, 1982-1993

This series is arranged alphabetically according to either title or subject of work. The bulk of this series is comprised of two large, unrealized projects: The Code of the West(a novel)and Goodbye If You Call That Gone (a memoir).

Both of these projects reflect immensely important aspects of Lewis’s life. The Code of the West reflects his intense love of the cinema—especially the bygone era of the Western. The material surrounding this project includes many handwritten and typed notes and an audio-taped interview with Diana Carey, a.k.a. “Baby Peggy,” the famous child-actor of the early 1920’s. Also notable here are handwritten notes concerning Lewis’s work-in-progress by Gus Hasford, Lewis’s friend and author of the famous Vietnam War novel, The Short-Timers.

Goodbye If You Call That Gone remains unfinished due to Lewis’s death from cancer in 1995. This was planned to be an expansive project in which he hoped to chronicle his own past — with both memory and fact — which centered on the tragic double-murder of both his parents in 1943. Included here are many photographs of Lewis’s immediate and extended family, and extensive genealogical research. Other notable items are Lewis’s book proposal accompanied by finished pages, both of which tell the fascinating story of his personal life and journalism career in his own words.

Box 47 contains strictly unpublished material; boxes 48-62 comprise a sub-series, Unfinished Work, containing material relating to articles that remained unfinished.