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Raine (Kathleen) Papers
MS.L.004  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • 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.