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Constance Fenimore Woolson: A Catalogue of Letters

Sharon L. Dean, "Constance Fenimore Woolson's Letters to Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin," Resources for American Literary Study, vol. 31 (2007): 126-155. Copyright 2007 AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Update 9/26/09, from Sharon Dean: Twenty-five addition letters to Samuel Mather, Jr., privately owned, are on microfilm at Western Reserve Historical Society.

New: More Letters

1 letter to Miss Mary Booth, privately owned

1 letter to Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham at the Western Reserve Historical Society

1 letter to Edward Strickland at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard

2 letters to Edward Everett Hale in the Elsa Noble Collection at Univ. Pennsylvania

Thanks to Professor Dean and AMS Press for making this resource available.

Typed for the web by Mary Pilch, Washington State University.

Name

Place of Origin

Date

Number

Archive

Oscar Fay Adams

Geneva

July 10

1

Phillips Exeter Academy

Thomas Bailey Aldrich  

Baden-Baden; Sorrento

June 30; Apr. 10

2

Houghton/Harvard

William Wilberforce Baldwin

Cairo; Cheltenham; Florence; Milan; Oxford; Richmond, Eng.; Venice

1886-Dec. 17, 1893

36

Pierpont Morgan Library, NY

Mrs. W. W. Baldwin

Florence

Apr. 15; Dec. 25, 1890; Easter 1891

3

Pierpont Morgan Library, NY

Miss Mary Booth

W. 32nd St., NY

Feb. 2, 1871

1

Princeton University

John Eliot Bowen

Geneva

July 9

1

Barnard College

R. R. Bowker

Cleveland; St. Augustine

May 13, 1873; Jan. 19, 1875

2

Library of Congress

Mrs. Dodge

Geneva

Sept. 13

1

Princeton University

D.C. Eaton

Yonkers

Aug. 15

1

Princeton University

D.C. Eaton

Shelby, NC

July 3

1

University of Virginia

Miss Farnian

Charleston

Apr. 17, 1875

1

Historical Society, Mackinac Island

Mr. Fay

St. Augustine

Feb. 26, 1876

1

University of Virginia

J. B. Gilder

Florence

June 10

1

NY Public Library

J.L. & J.B. Gilder

Florence

Jan. 28

1

Rollins College

Daniel Gilman

Cairo

no date

1

Johns Hopkins University

Mr. Gilmore

Cheltenham

Jan. 30, 1891

1

Johns Hopkins University

Joel Chandler Harris Cairo   Mar. 11, 1890   1   Emory University 

*John and Clara Hay

Baden-Baden             Cheltenham; Florence; Geneva; Leamington; London; Venice; Vienna; Washington

 1879-Dec. 12, 1890

John: 18  Clara: 3

Brown University

*Paul Hamilton Hayne

Charleston; Cooperstown; Darlington Co., SC; Goshen, VA; Hibernia, FL; Mentone, France; St. Augustine; Summerville, SC; W. 17th St., NY

1875-1876; 1878; 1880

15

Duke University

Mrs. Houts

Florence

Oct. 15

1

Vassar College

Elinor Howells

Hampstead Health

Dec. 24, 1882; July 13 or 15; Nov. 5

3+ Fragment

Houghton/Harvard

William Dean Howells

Florence; Shelby, NC; Rome; St. Augustine; W. 17th St., NY; Yonkers

June 28, 1876; May 4; Oct. 27; Nov. 5; Dec. 11

6

Houghton/Harvard

William Dean Howells (?)

Cleveland

Aug. 24, 1871

1

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, Fremont, OH

Winifred Howells

Venice

May 11, 1883

1

Houghton/Harvard

*Henry James

Leipzig; Sorrento; Venice

Feb. 12, 1882; Aug 30, 1882; June 7, 1883; June 24, 1883

4

Houghton/Harvard

L.E. Jones

Venice

Nov. 24, 1893

1

Brigham Young University

Little Readers

Sorrento

Mar. 18

1

Knox College, Illinois

Katharine Loring

Cheltenham; Florence

Feb. 15; Oct. 9; Nov. 16; Sept. 19, 1890

4

Beverly Historical Society, Massachusetts

Hamilton Mabie

Venice

June 18, 1883

1

Duke University

Mrs. Markland

no place

June 12

1

Ohio State University

Elizabeth Mather

St. Augustine

Dec. 4, 1875

1

Rollins College

Elizabeth Mather

Venice

Apr. 25, 1883; May 20, 1883

2

WRHS

Flora Mather

Florence

May 6

1

WRHS

Katherine Livingston Mather

Cheltenham; Engelberg; Florence; Geneva; Leamington; London; Lucerne; Mentone; France; Oxford; Rome; Sienna; Sorrento; Venice

Dec. 22, 1879-Dec. 13, 1893

25

WRHS (24 of these were transcribed by someone, and the orginals appear to be lost)

Samuel Mather Jr.

Athens; Cairo; Cheltenham; Dover; Florence; London; Lucerne; Richmond; Eng; steamship Gallia; Vienna

1880s-Nov. 23, 1893

41

WRHS

Samuel Mather Sr.

Florence; London; Lucerne; steamship Gallia

Nov. 24, 1879; Feb. 23, 1887

5

WRHS (transcribed as those to Flora above).

Mrs. McKibbin

Florence

no date

1

University of Virginia

Mrs. Nixon

Leamington

Dec. 5

1

University of Virginia

James Osgood

Charleston

Dec. 1, 1875

1

Historical Society, Mackinac Island

James Osgood

Florence

Dec. 30, 1886

1

Huntington Library, Los Angeles

James Osgood

Asheville

Oct. 22, 1875

1

Massachusetts Historical Society

Miss Rebekah Owen

Oxford

Apr. 16, 1893; May 9, 1893; Apr. 18

4

Colby College

B. Phillips

Lucerne

Aug. 16

1

NY Public Library

Miss Richards

Baden-Baden

24-Jul

1

University of Virginia

W.H. Rideing

Switzerland

July 12, 1883

1

WRHS

Scribner's

London

Feb. 2; May 14

2

Princeton University

Scribner's

Shelby, NC

July 3

1

University of Virginia

Sir

Lucerne

Aug. 9

1

University of Virginia

E.C.Stedman

Asheville; Baden-Baden; Cooperstown; Florence; Mentone, France; St. Augustine; Switzerland; Washington; Yonkers

June 12, 1874-Aug. 10

17

Columbia University

E.C.Stedman

Yonkers

Oct. 28

1

Princeton University

E.C. Stedman

Cooperstown

Oct. 10, 1876

1

Yale University

O.F.R.Waite

Oxford

Aug. 15, 1892

1

Fiske Free Library, Claremont, NH

William Collins Whitney

Oxford

Feb. 26, 1893

1

Library of Congress

Letters fragments and unidentified letters

Cairns Collection, University of Wisconsin, Madison: 1 written from Oxford on Aug. 30

University of Michigan: 1

 

Fragments of letter pasted in books

Located in archives at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL: in Henry Mills Alden, Oxford Guide. Oxford: Alden & Co., n.d.

Located in books in Clare Benedict Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland OH. MS. 4830:

*in Henry Mills Alden, God in His World: An Interpretation. New York: Harper, 1890 (letters from Cheltenham: Florence;

  Llandudno, North Wales; Venice; dated Dec. 2, 1885; Nov. 21, 1889; May 11, 1890; Nov. 20).

in Clare Benedict, Five Generations (1785-1923). Vol 2, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Vol. 3, The Benedicts Abroad

in Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Boston; Osgood, 1876 (inscribed to Clare and Willie [Benedict]).

in Andrew Elliot, European Backgrounds. N.p.: n.p., 1912

in Andrew Elliot, The Little Lost Prince. Edinburg: n.p., n.p.

in C.H. Grandgent, Italian Grammar. Boston: Osgood, 1876 (addressed to G. Pomeroy Keese).

in E.C. Stedman, Victorian Poets. Boston: Osgood, 1876 (addressed to My Dear Friend and to Clara Benedict).

in Woolson, Anne. New York: Harper, 1882 (inscribed to Miss Guilford).

in Woolson, Dorothy. New York: Harper, 1896 (inscribed to Alden).

in Woolson, Front Yard. New York: Harper, 1895.

in Woolson, Horace Chase. London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1894 (addressed to My Dear Friend and to Clara Benedict).

in Woolson, Jupiter Lights. London: Sampson Low, 1889 (addressed to Alden).

in Woolson, Mentone, Cairo, Corfu. New York: Harper, 1896 (addressed to Alden).

in Woolson, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches. New York: Appleton, 1880.

in Woolson, Two Women. New York: Appleton, 1862 (inscribed to Linda Guilford).

*Letters Published

 

Excerpts from those Henry Mills Alden in Woolson, Constance Fenimore Woolson: Selected Stories and Travel Narratives, ed.   Victoria Brehm and Sharon L. Dean.

 

John and Clara Hay in Alice Hall Petry, "Always, Your Attached Friend: The Unpublished Letters of Constance Fenimore

  Woolson to John and Clara Hay."

Paul Hamilton Hayne in Jay B. Hubbell, "Some New Letters of Constance Fenimore Woolson."

Henry James in The Letters of Henry James, 3: 523-52

Fragments of letters in Clara Benedict, Five Generations, especially vol. 2, Constance Fenimore Woolson. (Many of these

   approximately eighty-five letters are excepts from archived letters and are being cross-referenced. Correspondents

   include Jane Averell Carter, Emily Veron Clark, Mary Benedict Crowell, J.L. and J.B. Guilford, George Pomeroy Keese,

   Elizabeth Guin Mather, Katherine Livingston Mather, Samuel Mather Jr., Harriet Benedict Sherman, Arabella Carter

   Washburn, and Flora Payne Whitney.)