Richard Watson Gilder was an American poet and editor of Century magazine. This collection consists of letters mainly from Gilder to Brigham Johnson from 1887 to 1931.

Richard Watson Gilder was an American poet and editor of Century magazine from 1881 until his death in 1909. Gilder was born in Belle Vue, Bordentown, New Jersey on February 8, 1844; his parents were William Henry Gilder, a Methodist minister and sometime editor, and Jane Nutt, the daughter of a major. Barely twenty years old, Richard secured a position as paymaster on the Camden and Amboy Railroad, but soon tired of the work and left the railroad to become a reporter for the Newark Daily Advertiser. When R. Newton Crane, a colleague of Gilder's on the Advertiser, proposed that the two men start their own newspaper, Gilder agreed, and the Newark Morning Register was formed. In order to supplement his income, Gilder wrote for the New York based Hours at Home Magazine; an exhausting combination which he continued to perform until the financial failure of the Register in 1870. Shortly after the failure of the Register, House at Home merged with Scribner's Monthly, and Gilder joined the new magazine as managing editor. In 1881, after the death of J.G. Holland, editor-in-chief of Scribner's, Gilder assumed the vacant post. The magazine changed its name to Century. Gilder maintained that position until his death on November 18, 1909.

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