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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 1484

James Russell Lowell additional papers

Overview

Correspondence and financial papers of the American author James Russell Lowell.

Dates

  • Creation: 1802-1898

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

2 linear feet (4 boxes)

Primarily personal and professional letters to Lowell from a wide variety of correspondents, including his daughter Mabel Lowell Burnett and his father Charles Lowell. Personal letters discuss literature, poetry, and social and family news. The professional letters cover the period during Lowell's diplomatic career, primarily while minister to England. The collection includes letters of introduction, letters from autograph-seekers, some social letters to Maria White Lowell, 18th-century family papers, and a draft Act of the United States Continental Congress.

Biographical / Historical

Lowell was an author, poet, editor, teacher, and diplomat. He edited the Atlantic Monthly (1857-1861), and with Charles Eliot Norton, the North American Review (1864- ); was professor of French and Spanish Languages and Literatures at Harvard (1855-1886) succeeding Longfellow; and U.S. minister to Spain (1877-1880), and to England (1880-1885).

Arrangement

Arranged into the following series:

  1. I. Correspondence and compositions
  2. II. Business papers
  3. A. Statement of account for "Poems"
  4. B. Receipts for books, magazines, and subscriptions
  5. C. Real estate receipts [recataloged to bMS Am 1239]
  6. D. Financial statements
  7. E. Personal receipts

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

43M-862, 43M-863, and 43M-864. Gift of James Burnett Lowell, Cambridge, Massachusetts; received: 1944 June 23.

Separated Materials

Some items formerly shelved with this collection, have been moved to other call numbers:

  1. bMS Am 1191: items (229), (239), (244), and (285)
  2. bMS Am 1239 (1-7): *43M-864, items (8), (9)
  3. bMS Am 1239.1: items (227-228), (230-238), (240-243), (245-284), and (286-301)
Title
Lowell, James Russell, 1819-1891. James Russell Lowell additional papers, 1802-1898: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00407

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
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Harvard University
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