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Finding Aid for the Lily Bess Campbell papers, 1907-1968
1049
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Title: Lily Bess Campbell papers
Date (inclusive): 1907-1968
Collection number: 1049
Creator:
Campbell, Lily Bess, 1883-1967.
Extent:
12 boxes (6 linear ft.)
Abstract: Lily Bess Campbell (1883-1967) was a professor of English at UCLA (1922-50), won the achievement award from the American Association
of University Women in 1960, and was named Woman of the Year by the
Los Angeles Times in 1962. The collection consists of research notes, personal and professional correspondence and documents, and two photographs.
Language: Finding aid is written in
English.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift, 1969.
Processed by Sara Torres in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Kelley Wolfe Bachli,
Summer 2008. Additions processed by Lilace Hatayama, October 2011 and May 2012.
[Identification of item], Lily Bess Campbell papers (Collection 1049). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
4230450
Lily Bess Campbell was born on June 20, 1883 in Ada, Ohio. She received her B. Litt. in 1905 and her MA in 1906 from the University
of Texas. After a long period of ill health, she began her professional career as Instructor in English at the University
of Wisconsin (1911-1918) and received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1921. Though her first published work treated
Victorian poetry (
The Grotesque in the Poetry of Robert Browning, Austin, Texas: University of Texas, 1907), her major contributions to the academic field were made as scholar of Renaissance
drama and an eminent Shakespearean authority. Campbell taught at UCLA from 1922 until she retired in 1950 (among the many
students she influenced was dancer-choreographer Agnes De Mille). In 1923, she published
Scenes and Machines on the English Stage during the Renaissance, a Classical Revival, a work based on her 1921 dissertation. Her next important book was
Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes, Slaves of Passion (Cambridge U.P., 1930). She went on to produce the first modern edition of
The Mirror for Magistrates based on originals in the Huntington Library in 1938. In his "Dedicatory Preface" to
Essays Critical And Historical Dedicated to Lily B. Campbell (1950), Folger Shakespeare Library scholar Louis B. Wright wrote, "Miss Campbell's edition of the Mirror and its later augmentations
perhaps will stand as her most enduring contribution to the advancement of Renaissance learning" (vii). Campbell later published
Shakespeare's "Histories";
Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (The Huntington Library Press, 1947). In addition to her scholarly work, she published a satirical novel in 1929 entitled
These Are My Jewels. A complete bibliography of her work can be found in
Essays Critical And Historical Dedicated to Lily B. Campbell. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1950, on pages 285-286.
Lily Bess Campbell is remembered as a strong and early leader in the development of the Department of English and in UCLA's
transition from an undergraduate college to a research university. While at UCLA, she served on the Faculty Senate. When the
University of Chicago celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1941, Campbell was chosen as one of the 50 most distinguished
American scholars and was granted an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. She also received a Litt.D from Ohio Northern
University in 1940 and an LL.D from UC Berkeley in 1951. Campbell won the achievement award from the American Association
of University Women in 1960, and was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1962. Lily Bess Campbell died on
February 18, 1967, leaving a sizable bequest to the university to provide assistance for doctoral students working on their
dissertations. UCLA's Campbell Hall is named after her.
Sources:
- Archival materials in the UCLA University Archives
- Wright, Louis B. "Scholar of Wit and Wisdom: Dedicatory Preface" in Essays Critical And Historical Dedicated to Lily B. Campbell. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1950.
The collection consists of research notes, personal and professional correspondence and documents, and two photographs.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Campbell, Lily Bess, 1883-1967--Archives.
University of California, Los Angeles. Dept. of English--Faculty--Archival resources.
English teachers--California--Los Angeles--Archival resources.