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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 1629-1629.1

Witter Bynner letters from various correspondents

Overview

Letters to the American poet Witter Bynner from his friends and associates.

Dates

  • Creation: 1900-1958

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

1 linear feet (2 boxes)

Chiefly letters to Bynner from literary friends and associates such as Mary Austin, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Robert Frost, Kahlil Gibran, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell, William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), E. A. Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Sara Teasdale, and many others, on American literary criticism. Mary Austin's letters compliment Bynner's works and contain critical interpretations of their peer's works. The correspondence from Willa Cather divulges information about her youth as the starting point for her knowledge of western life. Frost's letters are personal in nature and inquire about family life while reminiscing on past encounters. Many letters from Laurence Housman discuss his own works, particularly the creation of his brother's (A.E. Housman) Memoirs. Laurence often discusses American politics, particulary the Second World War. Amy Lowell's letters discuss Bynner's reviews in The New Republic.

Also includes photocopies of Witter Byner's letters to others, and photocopies of miscellaneous poems, essays and fragments, both groups from the Dartmouth College Library.

Biographical / Historical

Bynner was an American poet and translator.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*60M-83. Gift of Witter Bynner, 342 Buena Vista Road Santa Fe, New Mexico; received: 1960 November 30.

MS Am 1629.1, photocopies of letters were gift of Dartmouth College Library; received: 1965 August 6.

Title
Bynner, Witter, 1881-1968, recipient. Witter Bynner letters from various correspondents, 1900-1958: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00783

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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