Correspondence, photographs, postcards, writings, reminiscences, and other materials relating to the Irish poet, political activist, and mystic Ella Young. The bulk of the collection consists of letters exchanged between Young and Scripps College Librarian Dorothy Drake from 1951 to 1955, letters addressed from Young to Elsa Gidlow between 1951 and 1956, and letters between Gidlow and Drake and Sybil M. Fielder, her successor as Scripps College Librarian, from 1953 to 1972. The collection includes a recorded interview, together with a published account, with photographs, of a visit to Young in 1951 by Drake and two colleagues; another recorded interview with Young from 1953; a small number of her interpretations of Irish traditions; and number of poems by Gidlow.

Ella Young, poet and mythographer, was born in Ballymena, co. Antrim, on December 26, 1867, the eldest of the eight children of James Bristow Young, a cornbroker, and Matilda Ann, née Russell. The family were Presbyterian and unionist. They moved several times during Ella's childhood, setting eventually in Rathmines, Dublin, where she completed her education, studying at Alexandra College and graduating BA in law and political science from the Royal University in 1898. She joined the Dublin branch of the Theosophical Society in the 1890s and became a protégé of Irish nationalist and writer George William Russell. Her first collection, Poems, was published in 1906 by the Tower Press, with which Russell was closely associated. She subsequently published two more collections of poetry in Ireland, The Rose of Heaven (1920) and The Weird of Fionavar (1922).

0.4 linear foot 1 box (13 folders).

For permission to reproduce or to publish, please consult Ella Strong Denison Library Special Collections staff.

The collection is available for research.