Jump to Content

Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Elizabeth Mary Russell, Countess Russell Papers: Finding Aid
mssER 1-1787  
View entire collection guide What's This?
Search this collection
Collection Overview
 
Table of contents What's This?
Description
This collection consists of manuscripts, journals (scattered years between 1896-1941), journal typescripts, ephemera, and correspondence by English novelist Countess Elizabeth Russell (1866-1941). There is also correspondence addressed to Countess Russell in the collection, and manuscripts by Mathilde Blind (Love's completeness : a poem), E.M. Forster (Nassenheide), Geoffrey Kerr (A scenario), and Katherine Mansfield (Poems). The collection also contains many letters and manuscripts which describe life during World War I and the beginning years of World War II in France, England and the United States; there are also many references to Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, the treatment of the Jewish people, and the Battle of Britain.
Background
Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866-1941), English novelist, became known to the world as “Elizabeth” after the publication of her first novel, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, in 1898. She was the daughter of Henry Herron Beauchamp, a cousin of Katherine Mansfield, and the sister-in-law of Bertrand Russell. She was a very popular writer during her lifetime and wrote some twenty works, mainly semi-autobiographical novels, between 1897 and 1940; two of her novels have been made into films, Mr. Skeffington and The Enchanted April. Her friends included many writers and also select groups which visited, first, her chalet in Switzerland and then her estate on the French Riviera; throughout her life she traveled extensively in Europe and the United States.
Extent
1,787 pieces + ephemera in 40 boxes.
Restrictions
The literary rights for E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster, 1879-1970, are owned by: King’s College, Cambridge, England.
Availability
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.