Access
Publication rights
Preferred citation
Acquisition information
Processing history
Biography
Collection Scope and Content Summary
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
Title: Kathleen Raine papers
Identifier/Call Number: MS.L.004
Physical Description:
15.6 Linear Feet
(35 boxes)
Date (inclusive): circa 1913-1986
Date (bulk): 1950-1975
Physical Location: Stored offsite at SRLF. Forty-eight hours advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Abstract: The papers of Kathleen Raine, English poet and Blake and Yeats scholar, include journals, correspondence, photographs, draft
versions of poems, essays, reviews, critical work, and her published autobiographical trilogy. The majority of Raine's writings
in the collection focus on her careers as a poet and a literary critic. Other items reflect personal life, including family
photographs, personal photographs and journals describing her dreams and her interest in seances.
General Physical Description note: 15.6 linear feet (35 boxes)
Language of Material:
English
.
Access
Collection is open for research. Forty-eight hours advance notice is required for access because materials are stored offsite.
Publication rights
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Preferred citation
Kathleen Raine papers. MS-L004. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this
collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
Acquisition information
Acquired in ten accessions, ca. 1970 to 1986.
Processing history
Minimally processed by Special Collections staff. Inventory edited by Laura Clark Brown in 1998. Finding aid edited by Lynette
J. Stoudt in 2001. Addition processed by Audra Eagle Yun, 2012.
Biography
Kathleen Raine, a poet and literary scholar, was born on June 14, 1908 in London. She was educated at County High School in
Ilford and Girton College in Cambridge and received a master's degree in natural sciences from Girton in 1929. Raine began
her literary career as a poet, publishing her first volume of poetry,
Stone and Flower: Poems 1935-43,in 1943. She later wrote extensively on both Yeats and Blake in works such as
Yeats, The Tarot, and The Golden Dawn (1973) and
From Blake to a Vision (1979), and she frequently reviewed books by other literary scholars. She also wrote several autobiographical works, including
Farewell Happy Fields(1973),
The Land Unknown (1975) and
The Lion's Mouth(1977).
Raine was a research fellow at Girton College from 1955 to 1961, and in 1962 she was the Andrew Mellon Lecturer at the National
Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. She received honorary doctorates from universities in the United Kingdom, France and the
United States and has won numerous awards and honors, including the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize (1952), Arts Council Award
(1953), Oscar Blumenthal Prize (1961), the Smith Literary Award (1972), and the Queen's Medal for Poetry (date unknown).
Raine married and later divorced Charles Madge with whom she had two children. She resides in London as of 1998.
Collection Scope and Content Summary
The papers of Kathleen Raine, English poet and Blake and Yeats scholar, include journals, correspondence, photographs, draft
versions of poems, essays, reviews, critical work, and her published autobiographical trilogy. Materials date from circa 1913
to 1986, with the bulk of items dating from 1950 to 1975. The majority of Raine's writings in the collection focus on her
careers as a poet and a literary critic. Other items reflect personal life, including family photographs, personal photographs
and journals describing her dreams and her interest in seances.
The collection is arranged in the order in which it was received from the vendor and is therefore somewhat difficult to use.
Materials in a single genre, from a particular period, and even drafts of the same work may be spread throughout the collection.
Many of Raine's writings appear in holograph notebooks in which she wrote on disparate topics. One convention she used was
to fill an entire notebook on one side of the pages, and then to turn the notebook upside down and to fill the reverse pages
from the back. The container list does not indicate in which direction of the notebook a researcher will need to look for
a specific poem or essay.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
English literature -- History and criticism
English poetry -- 20th century
Criticism -- History -- Sources
Diaries
Photographic prints
Poems.
Poets.
Literary critics.