Overview
Papers from 1946 to 1968 concerning the inventory, editorial work, and eventual publication of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Dates
- Creation: 1946-1968
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
This collection is not housed at the Houghton Library but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
3.5 linear feet (8 boxes)Collection contains a variety of materials spanning the years from 1946 to 1968, concerning the inventory, editorial work, and eventual publication of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Includes: inventories of manuscripts of Emerson and the Emerson family; manuscript notes; typescripts and manuscript drafts of text; contracts; copies of essays by others on Emerson; a manual for the editing of the Emerson journals and notebooks; and correspondence concerning the manuscripts and the editing project to and from Stephen Emerson Whicher and Robert Ernest Spiller, and others. Other names associated with this project, with papers included in this collection, are: the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, Roger Eliot Stoddard, Merton M. Sealts, William Henry Gilman, and Harrison Hayford.
Biographical / Historical
Beginning in 1959 and spanning multiple decades, the Harvard University Press published the Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Stephen E. Whicher and Robert E. Spiller and The journals and miscellaneous notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by William H. Gilman, Alfred R. Ferguson, Ralph H. Orth and many others. The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association was closely involved in the work of these publications.
Arrangement
Arranged into the following series:
- I. Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association inventories of Emerson materials
- II. Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson: General files
- III. Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume I (1833-1836)
- IV. Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II (1836-1841), typescripts
- V. Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II (1836-1841), typescript carbons
- VI. Ralph Waldo Emerson journals and miscellaneous notebooks vol. V: edition papers
- VII. William Henry Gilman and Harrison Heyford papers for editing Emerson
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
67M-183. Gift of Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association; received: 1967.
91M-85. Gift of Harrison Hayford, Professor of English, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; received: 1992 June 7.
General note
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. See access restrictions below for additional information.
Processing Information
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
Part of the MS Storage project, 2008-2009.
- Title
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882. Ralph Waldo Emerson edition papers,1946-1968: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02022
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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