University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The Little Corporal, published monthly from July 1865 to June 1875, was one of the first nationally popular American children’s magazines. The library holds issues of The Little Corporal dating from November 1870 to January 1874.

Mrs. Grundy was a humor magazine published weekly from July 8 to September 23, 1865. Its staff included Dr. Alfred L. Carroll, Henry L. Stephens, Edward F. Mullen and C.D. Shanley, as well as contributors such as Thomas Nast. Each issue included articles, poems, jokes, letters to Mrs. Grundy, and illustrations. Most of the content centered around political and economic issues in New York City. This volume contains the entire run (twelve issues) of Mrs. Grundy, dating from July 8 to September 23, 1865. These issues were published weekly and generally contained: the title page drawn by Thomas Nast; a page of advertisements; short pieces, including poems, letters and articles; a full-page, unbacked cartoon, generally regarding a political topic relevant to the week, drawn by Henry L. Stephens; cartoons and/or illustrations; and jokes and mottos.

Margaret McHenry earned her doctorate in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. Her dissertation was titled "The Ulster Theatre in Ireland." Following her graduation, she taught English at Roxborough High School in Philadelphia and continued to write. This collection contains writings by Margaret McHenry, including "The Ulster Theatre in Ireland;" poetry; a biography of S. Weir Mitchell; and "A Booklover's Britain," later "England in English." For the most part, each of her works is represented by a nearly finished copy; and in some cases, with drafts and notes.

Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) was an American poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, and teacher. Most prolific in the 1940s, Eldridge's writing focused on issues of World War II, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and Zionist and Jewish issues more generally. This collection consists of manuscripts, typescripts, and reprographic copies of Eldridge's poems, stories, and essays; scrapbooks of clippings related to Eldridge's writing and other activities; dustjackets; photographs; issues of newspapers and periodicals in which his columns appeared; and correspondence related to Eldridge's writing and career.

A volume with worn covers consisting of poems and prose by Benjamin S. Stivers spanning the years from 1836 to 1843.

Commonplace book containing copies and excerpts of eighteenth and nineteenth century poems and songs written between 1813 to 1840.

A volume containing copied poems and elegies with Christian themes handwritten by Eliza Maria Dalton from 1840-1869.

Commonplace book consisting of poems and songs kept by John Riley Marsh of Alvaston, Grange, Alvaston, Derbyshire, England written in 1829.

Dr. William Gibson Arlington Bonwill (1833-1899) was a dental surgeon, an inventor, a teacher, an artist, and a writer. This collection consists of two volumes compiled in 1899 of Bonwill's poems written between 1889 and 1899. These poems are annotated and cover a wide range of subjects, including dentistry, the seasons, religion, love and women, time and age, and emotion.

Volume containing the travel diary of Alexander Henry Wylie's journies through Europe and Havana, Cuba. The diary spans the years from 1832 to 1833.

This collection includes material collected by Siegfried Weisbeger (1896-1984), proprietor of the Peabody Book Shop in Baltimore Maryland and confidante of H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), a noted writer, editor, and social provocateur, famous for his disdain for common morals and received wisdom. The collection contains correspondence between the two men and other correspondents of the Peabody Book Shop, manuscripts and published writings by and about Mencken (many of them signed), and autobiographical writings and poems written by Weisberger.

Bruce Curley (b. 1955) is an American poet and technical writer. This collection contains literary journals featuring Bruce Curley's poems, as well as a manuscript and an audio recording of Curley reading his work.

The H.H. Furness Memorial Library focuses on the study of Shakespeare and other Tudor and Stuart dramatists. Horace Howard Furness (1833-1912) and his son Horace Howard Furness Jr. (1865-1930) founded and edited the Variorum Shakespeare and their library was donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1932. This collection contains personal correspondence to and from Rev. William Henry Furness (1802-1896), Horace Howard Furness, and Horace Howard Furness, Jr., largely relating to Shakespearean study and the H.H. Furness Memorial library; notebooks; copies of speeches and articles; and other assorted items relating to Shakespearean scholarship or to the Furness family.

This collection includes books, chaplets, published lectures, journal issues, and exhibition catalogues from the personal library of American poet Daniel Hoffman (1923-2013). The majority of the collection consists of small-press poetry collections. Some of the collections feature Hoffman as translator or include introductory material written by Hoffman, and some of the anthologies include his work, but the great majority of the material is by others.

Clement and Sophie Winston lived and worked in Washington, DC from the 1930s to the 1980s. Clement Winston (1902-1986), a Russian Jewish immigrant worked as an economist at the United States Bureau of the Budget. This collection documents the couple's personal and professional lives through their creative and professional writings, correspondence, household accounts and personal documents, dating from 1903 to 1990.

Julia Blumenreich is a Philadelphia-based poet and editor of the poetry journal 6ix. This collection documents her work as a poet as well as her editorship of 6ix from 1991 to 1998. To a lesser degree, the collection touches on her personal and family life with her husband Gilbert Ott (1950-2004) and her daughter Willa.

Mary Colum (nee Maguire) (1884-1957) was a literary critic known for her memoir, Life and the Dream, the posthumously published Our Friend James Joyce, as well as contributions to such magazines as Scribner's, The Saturday Review of Literature, and The Forum, where she also served as literary editor. Padraic Colum (1881-1972) was a poet, playwright, novelist, biographer, and folklorist, known primarily for his collections of myths and folktales for children, his novels Castle Conquer and The Flying Swans, a volume of collected poetry, and several plays. This collection contains 20 boxes of material relating to the works and careers of Padraic and Mary Colum, the management of Padraic Colum's estate following his death, and the life of Emmet Greene, nephew of Padraic and Mary Colum and executor of Padraic Colum's estate.

Telegraph Books (circa 1970-1972) was a publishing company founded by Victor Bockris, a poet, editor, and biographer of artists, authors, and musicians, poet Aram Saroyan, and literary agent Andrew Wylie. The Telegraph Books collection, dating from 1970 through 1972, documents the activities and functions of Telegraph Books publications in addition to the activities of Victor Bockris at that time, including audio recordings of interviews and conversations with colleagues and workshop materials.

The papers document the literary career and the personal and professional life of twentieth-century American novelist and writer Waldo David Frank. Comprising correspondence, writings, publicity, writings by others, memorabilia, photographs, scrapbooks, and clippings spanning from 1879 to 1977, the collection contains 132 boxes and 3565 folders. The correspondence documents Frank's personal and professional relationships with writers, editors, artists, friends, and family. Letters from friendships with other writers and artists such as Jean Toomer, Sherwood Anderson, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Mumford, Van Wyck Brooks, and Hart Crane document congenial collaborations, sharing of ideas, and disagreements. The writings contain his notebooks, major works, articles, essays, and early writings tracing Frank's works and ideas of society and culture with psychological and social themes of man and his environment. Frank's passion for the culture and study of Spain, Latin America, and Mexico is apparent in correspondence and his research, preserved through notes and photographs of South America and Mexico. Letters and photographs display Frank's relationships with family members, his wives (Margaret Naumburg, Alma Magoon Frank, and Jean Klempner Frank) and his children. The materials in this collection divulge not only the writings of Waldo Frank, but the struggles of the writer and his encounters with himself and society as he seeks his vision of truth in the world. He was courageous in the face of his critics and his political enemies even when experiencing both written and physical attacks. Even though Frank claimed he was an outsider he was embraced by the people and cultures he championed and studied. Although largely forgotten by the end of his lifetime, his correspondence, writings, and ideas remain, providing insight into literary circles, political ideas, and historical events in the United States and Latin America during the early- to mid-twentieth century.

Small collection regarding the poetry of C. K. Williams. One item is an original manuscript by the author of the poem "House."

Victor Bockris (born in 1949) is a poet, editor, and biographer of artists, authors, and musicians. The Victor Bockris papers document the activities of a community of avant-garde poets and artists of the early 1970s, mainly active in Philadelphia and New York City.

Howard Melvin Fast (1914-2003) was a best-selling and prolific American author of historical fiction, mysteries, and science fiction, known for his books on themes of patriotism, social justice, and the immigrant experience. He wrote nearly 100 books and more than 150 short stories, as well as numerous screenplays, stage plays, and newspaper columns. The Howard Fast papers include correspondence, journals, appointment books, address books, financials, writings, promotion and reviews, scrapbooks, biographies, profiles, chronologies, bibliographies, interviews, governmental and political files, vital records, personal documents, awards, photographs, artwork, and audiovisual materials. The papers were deposited at the University of Pennsylvania over the course of 45 years and represent nearly all facets of the writer's life.

Contains 22 series, including correspondence (118 boxes); legal matters (7 boxes); writings (260 boxes), comprising books, essays, short stories, poems, plays, screenplays, radio scripts, addresses, lectures, interviews, introductions, and prefaces; journals edited by Dreiser (6 boxes); notes (9 boxes); diaries (5 boxes); biographical material (1 box); memorabilia (41 boxes), comprising scrapbooks, photographs, art work, promotional material, postcards, and miscellanea; financial records (5 boxes); clippings (23 boxes); works by others (12 boxes); and oversize materials (2 boxes). Also includes materials regarding various family members: brother Paul Dresser (8 boxes of correspondence, sheet music and lyric sheets, clippings and memorabilia, and two plays written by Dresser); second wife Helen Dreiser (4 boxes of diaries and other writings); and niece Vera Dreiser (2 boxes of correspondence).

Alfred Betts Caldwell (1900-1980) was a 1924 graduate of The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and an author of mystery novels. The Alfred Betts Caldwell papers are comprised primarily of Caldwell's writings, including typescripts and some of his published novels. Also there are assignments and projects undertaken 1963-1965 while completing correspondence courses with the Professional Writers School located in Westport, Connecticut, and a scrapbook kept by Caldwell from 1917 to 1936.

Thomas Lask was the poetry editor at the New York Times. This collection consists of personal correspondence addressed to Lask and other individuals at the New York Times, as well as publications and printed material that Lask saved.