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Case file s1826 · Literature and art · 1995
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1995
Patricia Highsmith: Patricia-Highsmith-1962
Patricia Highsmith. AnonymousUnknown author / Harper & Brothers. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
4 February 1995
Place
Locarno, Switzerland
Field
novelist · Literature and writing on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (New York); Swiss law · Common law · Civil law
Historical event
The 2021 publication of Highsmith's diaries
Religion
Patricia Highsmith: Atheist and agnostic (recorded as atheism on Wikidata)
Literature and artBurned papers and destroyed workFortunes from conquest and slaveryPostwarEuropeSwitzerland

Patricia Highsmith left her whole estate, over $3 million, to the Yaddo artists' colony, and her papers went to the Swiss Literary Archives

Highsmith died in a hospital in Locarno in 1995 and left her entire estate to Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. A 1998 Newtown Bee report put the gift at more than $3 million and called it the largest single contribution to Yaddo since the Trask family founded it. Her literary papers did not go to Yaddo. The Swiss Literary Archives in Bern acquired them; one source says in August 1996 and in accordance with her wishes, another says by bequest†. The archive's catalogue notes that the main part of the papers is delivered by her publisher, Diogenes Verlag, and lists her correspondence with Diogenes head Daniel Keel (1930 to 2011). The diaries are held in Bern, and a 2006 exhibition at the Swiss National Library drew on them. Her executor was not named in sources found†.

What the law took from it

A bequest of the whole estate to an institution can send the money one place and the papers another.

Sources
  1. helveticarchives.chGovernment record
  2. newtownbee.comPress
  3. swissinfo.chPress
  4. ead.nb.admin.chPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Patricia Highsmith left her whole estate, over $3 million, to the Yaddo artists' colony, and her papers went to the Swiss Literary Archives,” story s1826, https://www.celebrity.estate/patricia-highsmith-1995, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artBurned papers and destroyed workFortunes from conquest and slaveryPostwarEuropeCommon lawCivil lawSwitzerland