Charles Warren Stoddard Autograph Album, 1863-1897

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Summary

Creators:
Stoddard, Charles Warren, 1843-1909
Abstract:
An album containing handwritten poems, notes, and letters written to American author and poet Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909) by his friends and acquaintances including many leading literary figures chiefly in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts from the 1860s to 1890s. Among the many notable contributors are Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte, and Joaquin Miller.
Extent:
1 volume, 241 pages ; volume 29 x 23 cm
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection consists of an autograph album containing handwritten notes, letters, poems, and drawings by approximately 200 friends and acquaintances of American author Charles Warren Stoddard, including leading American literary figures, journalists, poets, critics, politicians, and actors of the late 19th century. Among the many notable contributors are Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte, and Joaquin Miller. The earliest item in the book is an 1863 dedication by Thomas Starr King, and continues with contributions primarily from members of San Francisco literary society beginning in the mid-to-late 1860s through the late 1890s, as well as from friends in other locales where Stoddard lived or traveled including Louisville, Kentucky; Washington, D.C.; Massachusetts; New York; and Hawaii. A letter from L.C. Bayles (page 23) introduces lines of verse with the note "in accordance with your request," reflecting Stoddard's curation of the album as a compendium of verse and personal sentiments tailored towards friendships and literary musings. The volume includes two photographs of groups of men and women, captioned, "Riverdale, N.Y., July 4th 1890" (page 116).

There are manuscript poems and lines of verse, often penned specifically for Stoddard, from literary friends including Isaac Hull Adams; Daniel Dulany Addison; Benjamin Parke Avery; William Barry; Fred Buel; James F. Bowman; George Burrows; Carrie Carlton; Bliss Carman; Pierre Cauwet; Robert W. Chambers; Sarah M. Clarke; Ada Clare; Katherine E. Conway; Ina D. Coolbrith; R. M. Daggett; Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren; Malcolm Douglas; Theodore F. Dwight; Eugene Field; Hamlin Garland; Grace Greenwood; Bret Harte; Jerome Hart; John Hay; Charles Hinton; Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.; William Dean Howells; Daniel E. Hudson; Thomas A. Janvier; Tremenheere Johns; Ralph Keeler; George Kennan; Orpheus C. Kerr; Alice Kingsbury (Cooley); Rudyard Kipling; Emilie Lawson; James Linen; Fitz Hugh Ludlow; Adah Isaacs Menken; John Malone; Joaquin Miller; Morton Mitchell and Laddie Mitchell; James Whitcomb Riley; James Jeffrey Roche; Edgar Saltus; Richard Henry Savage; Emma D.E.N. Southworth; Frank Soulé; Bella Z. Spencer; Horatio Stebbins; Maria Longworth Storer (with sketches); J. D. Strong; M.D. Strong; H. A. Stuart; T. R. Sullivan; Bayard Taylor; Charles Wadsworth; Charles Henry Webb; May Wentworth; George Edward Woodberry; and R. C. Wyllie.

Prose and letters from L. C. Bayles; Frederick Billings; Ezra S. Carr and his wife, Jeanne C. Smith Carr; Samuel Clemens; Laura Cuppy; G. B. Densmore; Annie Fields; Archibald C. Gunter; Francis King Harte; Louise E. Holden; Jules Luquiens; C. T. H. Palmer; Theodore Roosevelt; Anna Josephin Savage; Rodney L. Tabor; Charles A. Wetmore; Virgil M. Williams; and Thérèse Yelverton.

Drawings include ones by Reginald B. Birch; John S. Bugbee; Arthur Lemon; G. Thomas; and Theodore Wores.

There are also brief notes and/or signatures of individuals including Charles Francis Adams; Henry Adams; Frances Hodgson Burnett; Ada, Dyas; Louise Imogen Guiney; Iza Duffus Hardy; Clarence King; Francis D. Millet; Thomas Nelson Page; Theodore Roosevelt; Charles Dudley Warner; and Lydia Woodworth.

The contents are handwritten on blank pages in an "Album" published by Leavitt & Allen, consisting of 241 pages including an engraved title page and frontispiece and [8] other engraved plates with illustrations by Creswick, W. H. Bartlett, W. Tombleson; J. Smillie and T. Addison Richards; engravings by J. Sartain; J. Bannister; Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie; J. White; and C. T. Giles. Edges gilt.

Biographical / historical:

American author and poet Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909) was born in Rochester, New York, on August 7, 1843, and moved with his family to San Francisco, California, in 1855. Stoddard began writing and traveling at an early age. In 1864, Stoddard made his first trip to Hawaii and Polynesia. His poetry was first published in The Golden Era in 1862 and his first book of poems was published in 1867. In the 1860s and 1870s, Stoddard traveled widely, participated in Bohemian literary circles in San Francisco, and worked as a correspondent and journalist. In the early 1880s, Stoddard was a co-editor of the Overland Monthly magazine with Ina D. Coolbrith and Bret Harte. From 1885 to 1886, he served as chair of the English department at the University of Notre Dame, and was department chair at Catholic University from 1889 to 1902 before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He returned to San Francisco in April 1903, and then later lived in Monterey, California, until his death on April 23, 1909.

Acquisition information:
Purchased from Goodspeed, February 1923.
Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
Website