Mary Alden Hopkins Collection on Hannah More MS.2020.001

Finding aid by Elizabeth Cervantes
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2024
2520 Cimarron Street
Los Angeles 90018
clark@humnet.ucla.edu


Contributing Institution: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Title: Mary Alden Hopkins Collection on Hannah More
Creator: Hopkins, Mary Alden, 1876-1960
Identifier/Call Number: MS.2020.001
Physical Description: 1.04 Linear feet (3 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1777-1943
Physical Location: Clark Library.
Language of Material: English .

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to researchers.

Provenance

Gift, Bank Street College of Education, 2020. Originally the gift of Mary Squire Abbot, before 1975.

Biographical Note

Mary Alden Hopkins was born in Bangor, Maine on January 13, 1876 to Mary Allen Webster and George H. Hopkins. She attended the University of Maine and Wellesley College; she later received an M.A. from Columbia University. After finishing at Columbia, Hopkins continued to live in New York and was a vocal member of various progressive activist groups, regularly writing on topics such as female suffrage, labor and dress reform, birth control, pacifism and vegetarianism. Her magazine work was published in a variety of periodicals, from the socialist journal The Masses, to mainstream popular magazines like Scribner's, to major newspapers like The New York Times. During World War I, Hopkins was a member of the New York City branch of the Woman's Peace Party, and co-wrote antiwar articles for their magazine, Four Lights, which the US Postal Service refused to deliver after the US Department of Justice branded two of its issues as traitorous because of their vehement antiwar stance.
Hopkins also wrote several books with Doris Webster, including Consider the Consequences! (1930), which is now considered to be the first "choose-your-own-adventure" style gamebook.
Later in her life, Hopkins wrote Hannah More and Her Circle (1947) and Dr. Johnson's Lichfield (1952). She moved to Newtown, Connecticut where she restored five 18th century inns and their gardens. She died November 6, 1960 in Danbury, Connecticut.
After Hopkins' death, her agent Mary Squire Abbot donated her collection of Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth books and manuscripts to Bank Street College of Education. Other books from Hopkins' library were also donated by Abbot to the University of Maine. Much of the rare books from Hopkins' More and Edgeworth collections were transferred to Barnard College in 1974, but the archives relating to her research on More remained at Bank Street's Library until 2020, when they were donated to the Clark Library.
References:
- "Mary A. Hopkins, 84, Wrote of England," New York Times, November 10, 1960.
- Maine Alumnus, Volume 43, Number 4, February-March, 1962, page 11, (https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1253&context=alumni_magazines)
- Wikipedia
- Ancestry.com

Processing Information

This collection was processed and described at Bank Street Library in 2007 by Lindsey Wyckoff and Kate Kearns. Additional physical processing at the Clark Library by Joyce Wang in 2020; finding aid prepared in 2024 by Elizabeth Cervantes and Rebecca Fenning Marschall.

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of original correspondence and other secondary source material on Hannah More, gathered by Mary Alden Hopkins in the course of her research for the book Hannah More and Her Circle (1947). Materials include original outgoing letters from and incoming letters to Hannah More, typescripts of letters in this collection, copies and transcripts of More letters and materials held by other institutions, correspondence between Hopkins and various scholars and librarians, and three early works by More from Hopkins' collection (the majority of Hopkins' Hannah More book collection has been at Barnard College since 1975).

Conditions Governing Use

The Clark Library owns the property rights to its collections but does not hold the copyright to these materials and therefore cannot grant or deny permission to use them. Researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials they may wish to use, investigating the owner of the copyright, and obtaining permission for their intended publication or other use. In all cases, you must cite the Clark Library as the source with the following credit line: The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Box 1, Folder 1

Letters from Hannah More and invoices from Martha Lintorn to Hannah More 1777-1783

Box 1, Folder 2

Letter from Hannah More to Martha Lintorn

Box 1, Folder 3

Typescripts of unpublished verses of Hannah More 1943

Scope and Contents

Includes correspondence from Frederick W. Hilles and Theophilo Copland-Griffiths.
Box 1, Folder 4

Original letters from Hannah More with typescripts 1776-1824

Scope and Contents

Correspondents include Miss Inman (March 1824), Miss Roberts (undated), Rev. Mr. Maurice (26 November 1812), Martha Lintorn (undated), Rev. W. Cooper (undated), Mr. Cadell (17 February 1793), and David Garrick (12 August 1776).
Box 1, Folder 5-6

Typescripts of unpublished verses of Hannah More 1939

Box 1, Folder 7

Abstracts of the wills of Hannah More and Martha More

Box 1, Folder 8

Typescripts of commonplace book kept by Miss Roberts

Box 1, Folder 9

Glass plate negatives from the British Museum

Box 1, Folder 10

Postcards of Bath and Wrington, with notes from Hopkins

Box 1, Folder 11

Glass plate depicting view of cottage of Saunders

Box 1, Folder 12

Copies of portraits of Hannah More and pictures of her home

Box 2, Folder 1

Hopkins correspondence concerning Hannah More 1938-1941

Scope and Contents

Correspondents include: Thomas O. Mabbott, E. Ball, S.A. Ball, Blanch S. Linton [Orman], Charles L. Simmons, Christine Gibson, Michael Sadleir, Douglas Cleverdon, Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Elizabeth Scott, Frederic G. Ludwig, Anne S. Pratt, Bernhard Knollenberg, L. Herman Smith, Lyle Wright, Goodspeed's Book Shop, Victor H. Paltsis, Allyn B. Forbes, Ann Mosher, Robert F. Metzdorf, William Reitzel, University Library Cambridge, Society of Antiquaries of London, Reginald Wright, Winifred H. Dunman, Dobell's Antiquarian Bookstore, New York Public Library.
Box 2, Folder 2

Lists of Works by Hannah More

Box 2, Folder 3

Partial bibliography of writings about Hannah More 1939

Box 2, Folder 4-5

Unclassified copies of letters from Hannah More

Scope and Contents

Includes an original letter from John Newton to More dated 9 February 1788.
Box 2, Folder 6

Partial bibliography of reviews on Hannah More's writings

Box 2, Folder 7

Hopkins' notes on Hannah More's library 1939

Box 2, Folder 8

Partial list of unpublished letters used in book

Box 2, Folder 9

List of portraits of Hannah More

Box 3, Folder 1

Mrs. H. More's Hints for a Young Princess : Volume I & Volume II 1819

Box 3, Folder 2

Coelebs in Search of a Wife : Volume I & Volume II 1809

Box 3, Folder 3

Mendip Annals 1858