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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 1897

Letters from Conrad Aiken and Ezra Pound to Gordon Cairnie

Overview

Letters written to bookseller Gordon Cairnie from poets Conrad Aiken and Ezra Pound.

Dates

  • Creation: 1930-1971

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

.5 linear feet (1 box)

Collection contains letters written to book collector and seller Gordon Cairne from Conrad Aiken, Ezra Pound, and Dorothy Pound. These letters mostly are requests for books that they wish to buy from Cairne, and also concern how much money they owe the bookseller. Letters also discuss the bookselling business. The collection also contains limericks written for Cairne by Aiken, a Hallmark card with a poem written by Aiken, many postcards, a musical program, an invitation, newspaper clippings about books, and a cartoon.

Biographical / Historical

Cairnie was the proprietor of the Grolier Book Shop in Cambridge, Mass. Cairnie founded the shop, specializing in poetry, in 1927.

Arrangement

Arranged alphabetically.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*73M-68. Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Harvard College Library, from the estate of Gorden Cairnie, care of Arthur Freeman, 4 Trowbridge Place, Cambridge, Mass. 02138; received: 1973 November 16.

Title
Cairnie, Gordon, recipient. Letters from Conrad Aiken and Ezra Pound to Gordon Cairnie: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00636

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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