Overview
Correspondence and compositions of American poet and translator Witter Bynner.
Dates
- Creation: 1829-1965
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Conditions Governing Use
Images linked to the finding aid describing this collection are intended for public access and educational use. This material is owned and/or held by the Houghton Library, and is provided solely for the purpose of teaching or individual research. Any other use, including commercial reuse, mounting on other systems, or other forms of redistribution requires the permission of the curator.
Extent
49.5 linear feet (99 boxes)Correspondence (including carbon copies of outgoing letters); manuscripts of poems, plays, and prose writings; diaries and memoirs; scrapbooks of publications and reviews; photographs of family members and friends from the literary and theatrical worlds; manuscripts of writings by others, many with annotations by Witter Bynner. Includes letters to Bynner's uncle, the novelist Edwin Lassetter Bynner, and other family letters. Also contains tapes of interviews with Bynner as well as business and legal papers belonging to him.
Biographical / Historical
Bynner was an American poet and translator.
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- I. bMS Am 1891: Letters to Witter Bynner
- II. bMS Am 1891.1: Letters from Witter Bynner
- III. bMS Am 18911.2: Family letters: a. Letters to Edwin Lassetter Bynner
- III. bMS Am 18911.2: Family letters: b. Other family letters
- IV. bMS Am 1891.3: Other letters
- V. bMS Am 1891.4: Compositions of Witter Bynner (unbound): a. Individual poems
- V. bMS Am 1891.4: Compositions of Witter Bynner (unbound): b. Collections of poems
- V. bMS Am 1891.4: Compositions of Witter Bynner (unbound): c. Prose and plays
- VI. bMS Am 1891.5: Compositions of Witter Bynner (bound): a. Poetic notebooks
- VI. bMS Am 1891.5: Compositions of Witter Bynner (bound): b. Other notebooks and bound manuscripts
- VI. bMS Am 1891.5: Compositions of Witter Bynner (bound): c. Scrapbooks
- VII. bMS Am 1891.6: Other papers
- VIII. bMS Am 1891.7: Tapes, business and legal papers, photographs, etc. belonging to Witter Bynner
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
*70M-131. Gift of the Estate of Witter Bynner c/o Mr. Henry J. Hughes, Sena Plaza, P.O. Box 340, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501; received: 1970.
Processing Information
This finding aid was revised in 2023 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. During that revision, contextualizing processing notes were added to the description of one item. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.
- Title
- Bynner, Witter, 1881-1968. Witter Bynner papers: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou00668
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.
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