Box 61

Scope and Contents A collection of materials related to British writer Edgar Wallace, mostly from his early career. Three exercise books containing a variety of historical notes, poems, songs, and short prose pieces alongside doodles and sketches: one titled “Odds and Ends” (34 pages, dated 1898), one marked “Private” (36 pages, dated 1898), and one titled “Private/Rough Thoughts” (52 pages, undated but likely contemporaneous with the other two). References to Cape Town, Africa, and the Muizenberg Camp suggest...

Scope and Contents Four small manuscript documents related to Jacobus VanGordon and his son Moses dated between the 1770s and 1790s. The earliest document, dated July 23rd, 1781, compels the elder VanGordon to appear as a witness in the court martial of Colonel Jacob Stroud (1735-1806), who was being tried for insubordination. The remaining three documents concern Moses’ time as a soldier in the Revolutionary War: one (undated) allows him passage home, a second dated 1778 is a common loyalty certificate...

Scope and Contents Five notes and letters in the hand of American author William Winter dated between 1878 and 1911. Three are to unknown recipients (one 1878, one undated but likely 1888 or 1889, and one dated 1911); contents general. One is dated 1902 and addressed to a Mrs. W.S. Edgar regarding the writer Edwina Booth Grossman (1861-1938), daughter of Shakeapearean actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893) and niece of John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), the stage actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The final letter is...

Scope and Contents A manuscript poem, undated but likely from the 19th century, 3 pages on a single large sheet of folded paper, titled “Willie Weaver”. The contents are a variant of the Anglo-American folksong most commonly known as Will the Weaver or Bill the Weaver, which tells the comic tale of a newly married man who regrets a hasty marriage to a domineering wife, ultimately surprising her and her lover Will the Weaver in their home. Will hides up the chimney and is smoked out by the husband, beaten, and...

Scope and Contents A collection of materials related to American cartoonist Art Young. One original pen drawing on board illustrating the short story “Uncle Ethan Ripley” by American author Hamlin Garland (1860-1940). Two matted photographs of Young taken by noted photographer Jacob Schloss in his Manhattan studio, one with an annotation on the back in Young’s hand: “about 32 yrs of age.” Three typed and signed letters to Young by American newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936): one dated April 9th, 1900...

Scope and Contents Two diaries belonging to Baltimore philanthropist Julian LeRoy White. The earlier diary is from 1866, when White was only 13 years old and documents daily life during a year spent abroad in Europe with his mother and stepfather the British physician Thomas H. Buckler (1812-1901). Decorative blue cloth binding and marbled edges; the front flyleaf contains two stamps bearing White’s name and a note in ink indicating that the diary was a Christmas gift from White’s aunt Mary in 1865. The second...

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A small blue pamphlet whose front cover reads “Wesleyan Methodist Local Preachers’ Mutual-Aid Association. Contributions in Aid of the Great Bazaar to be Held in London, June, 1860.” The four leaves inside consist of lined paper with places to put the name of contributors and the items they have given. Half of the pages have been used.

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A single leaf of paper containing a manuscript copy of the poem “Ordered Home” by A.R. Ubsdell, originally published in The Cornhill Magazine, September 1934. A note beneath the poem indicates that it was composed in Kidderpore, Kolkata, presumably when he was stationed there during the Second World War.

Scope and Contents A commonplace book entitled “Scraps of Ideas” compiled by Brown University professor Alonzo Williams during his time as an undergraduate at the same school. The date November 18th, 1868 is found on the second page of the notebook and the contents were likely written around that time. Williams apparently kept this notebook throughout his life: he signs his name a number of times, including a later signature on the front cover reading “ Prof. Alonzo Williams.” The contents consist of notes,...

Scope and Contents A 4-page manuscript in the hand of American poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The contents are the poem “The Demon’s Cave” with a brief introduction, followed by a portion of a prose piece entitled “Manufacturing Establishment.” This “The Demon’s Cave” is that published in the Boston Masonic Mirror in 1831, rather than the amended version usually published in Whittier’s complete works as “Lines, Written on visiting a singular cave in Chester, N.H., known in the vicinity by the name of ‘The...

Scope and Contents A collection of 14 letters sent by American actor and book collector Francis Wilson dated between 1887 and 1929. Recipients are largely American writers and book collectors including Arthur Macy (1842-1904) and Paul Lemperly (1858-1939). All handwritten except the latest letter. A photograph of Wilson is also included with a printed label on the back reading “FRANCIS WILSON, as Sir Guy De Vere in ‘When Knights Were Both’ at the” with a pencil note indicating this would have been in May...

Scope and Contents A bound typescript containing what is essentially a diary written by a woman named Madeleine (“Mad”) documenting life in France between September 1940 and February 1945. An opening letter, dated April 10th, 1941 explains that the narrative was composed as a series of letters to Madeleine’s friends Polly, Alice, and Miss Franklin, with each of them receiving a third of the document, and she imagines that after the war, the three women will “have to join hands” in order to read the story in...

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A small collection of materials related to Berkeley historian Ronald N. Walpole. Three letters addressed to British academic J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (1916-1985) pertaining to their mutual interest in the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle and related materials, dated between 1946 and 1948. Along with the letters is an inscribed offprint of Walpole’s article “The Pèlerinage de Charlemagne: Poem, Legend, and Problem” originally published in Romance Philology in 1955.

Scope and Contents A letter from one Charlotte Pope addressed to English miniature painter Alfred Tidey. The contents begin by thanking him “for the two chalk portraits, for the trouble you have taken to make them satisfactory to my friends”, and continue in predicting the artist’s future success. The majority of the text, however, is taken up with religious zeal as Pope provides “a warning which a Christian friend could scarcely avoid uttering lest in the engrossing nature of your studies and in the...

Scope and Contents An English hymn card from the First World War, printed with O God, the Strength of Those who War, a hymn by the Rev. William Boyd Carpenter (1841-1918), Canon of Westminster. The text is printed in black with a red border, featuring a heading in black faux-gothic type: “O God Our Strength.” Below the border is the following message, also in red: “Dedicated, by Special Permission, to Their Majesties the King and Queen.” At the top is a piece of thin red cord, now much faded, tied into a bow....

Scope and Contents Correspondence sent to David and Enid Morse by English novelist Angela Thirkell at their home at 14 Airlie Gardens, London. A postcard on Thirkell’s personalized stationary addressed to David (1909-1993), and dated December 7th, 1934 along with an identical card to his aunt Enid (1887-1962), dated April 7th, 1936. The contents are brief and relate to plans to meet. The third card is similar, addressed to David Morse and dated only July 11th. The Morse family appears to have been connected to...

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A letter addressed to Mildred Temple, literary agent at the International Magazine Company, dated May 19th, 1930 and signed “Harold.” The contents pertain to meeting with various illustrators and writers.