The University of Chicago Library > Special Collections Research Center > Finding Aids > Guide to the Harriet Monroe Papers 1873-1944
© 2006 University of Chicago Library
| Title: | Monroe, Harriet. Papers |
|---|---|
| Dates: | 1873-1944 |
| Size: | 11 linear feet (21 boxes) |
| Repository: |
Special Collections Research Center |
| Abstract: | The collection contains correspondence; manuscripts of poems, plays, and autobiography, A Poet's Life; lectures, essays, and short stories; diaries; legal documents; memorabilia, Christmas cards; photographs; and clippings. Papers relate to Monroe's interests as poet, editor, playwright, art critic, traveler, and conservationist. Correspondents include Jane Addams, Daniel French, Herbert Adams, Carter Harrison, Maude Elliott, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Eugene Field, E.C. Stedman, Louis Sullivan, Rebecca West, William Allen White, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Charles Zueblin, and William Vaughn Moody. Also includes letters from Monroe's sister Lucy Calhoun and her brother-in-law William J. Calhoun while he served as United States Minister to China in Peking (1912). Also includes correspondence with the editors of Macmillan and Co. and poets regarding selection and permission to publish for the anthology The New Poetry which Monroe edited with Alice Corbin Henderson. |
The collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Monroe, Harriet. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Harriett Monroe (23 Dec. 1860-26 Sept. 1936), poet and editor, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Henry Stanton Monroe, a lawyer, and Martha Mitchell. Her parents, both of Scotch ancestry and moderately wealthy, came to the pioneer community of Chicago in the early 1850s. After 1871 Henry Monroe's law practice began earning less.
Harriet Monroe's education began in her father's library where she spent hours reading Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Dickens, and Thackeray. After suffering a severe unidentified illness in 1876, she was sent the next year to Visitation Convent in Georgetown, D.C. to benefit from the milder climate. At Visitation, her health improved, and away from her quarrelling parents and assertive older sisters she became more independent. Monroe's intellectual and literary aspirations were encouraged by the faculty, especially by Sister Pauline, her instructor in English literature and composition.
After graduating from Visitation in 1879, Monroe returned to the family home in Chicago, where she would remain until her father's death in 1903. During the next ten years she participated in the social and intellectual life of the rapidly growing city. Declining family funds motivated her to search for work and she began a twenty year career in journalism, writing freelance reviews of art, music, and drama for Chicago and New York papers. It was during this time that her social circle expanded and included authors such as Margaret Sullivan, Eugene Field, and her long time correspondent Robert Louis Stevenson. Additionally, Monroe's sister Dora, married John Wellborn Root, the architect who would make his mark through the rebuilding of Chicago after the 1871 fire. Following Root's death in 1891 Monroe wrote a memoir of his career.
Throughout the 1880s trips to New York with her sister Lucy continued to widen her social and professional circle, and Monroe became a regular attendant at the literary salons of important figures such as Edmund C. Stedman and Richard Watson Gilder. In 1888 her first published poem, "With a Copy of Shelley," appeared in Century Magazine.
That same year, while working as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune, she was commissioned by the city fathers to write an ode of dedication for the new Chicago Auditorium designed by Louis Sullivan. Another commission followed in March 1891 for the Chicago's World's Columbian Exhibition. After two years of struggling over the piece it was read at the fair on the opening day, 21 October 1892, and was well received. The Ode was printed in the New York World without Monroe's permission. She sued and after four years of legal actions she was awarded a judgment of $5000.00. Monroe used the money for another trip to Europe. Once returned she continued writing and teaching in an effort to earn a small income. In 1899, her health suffered and she went to the American west in search of milder climate. There she discovered the western deserts and mountains that became her passion.
From 1895 to 1910 Monroe's life was occupied with travel, continuing her career as a freelance journalist, teaching, and writing. In 1910 she traveled through Europe and Russian on her way to visit her sister Lucy in China. Lucy had established herself as an editor at the avant-guard publisher Stone and Kimball, and then married William J. Calhoune, the US minister to China.
Efforts to become a major literary presence were continually frustrated, and finances continued to be strained, but early in 1911 at age fifty, Monroe began fundraising for Poetry: A Magazine of Verse devoted exclusively to the publication of poetry and the advancement of promising young poets. Monroe asserted that "poetry cannot sing into a void" and began her project in the hopes of reenergizing the somewhat stagnant state of American poetry. The funding for the magazines first five years came from Chicago's elite. The first issue debuted in October 1912. The young Chicago writer, Alice Corbin Henderson was the magazine's first associate editor, and the poet Ezra Pound served as its foreign correspondent in London, thus assuring connections between the American and English poetry circles. Poetry gained immediate national attention in the popular press, and the magazine soon became an important forum for critical discussion and a showplace for promising poets. Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, Vachael Lindsay, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, T.S. Elliott, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce would all be published in Poetry.
The final twenty-four years of Monroe's life were occupied primarily with Poetry; she was the main force that ensured the magazine's success in times of financial insecurity. Monroe continued traveling and journeyed to Europe, Mexico, China and South America. In August 1936 Monroe, then seventy-six, attended a conference of the International Association of Poets, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While visiting Incan ruins in the Peruvian highlands, Monroe suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. She was buried in the cemetery, Pantheon of Arequipa, at the foot of Mt. Misti. Poetry was carried on through the efforts of editor and literary critic, Morton Dauwen Zabel
In Poetry, Monroe created an exciting new forum in which modern poetry could flourish. As a skilled yet eclectic editor, she was instrumental in unearthing and encouraging promising new poets.
Harriet Monroe (1860-1936), poet and founding editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, gave her personal papers as well as the business files of Poetry to the University of Chicago Library. The personal papers have no direct relationship to her career as an editor but relate to her own literary interests, her family, and her friends. Nevertheless her deep involvement with Poetry is reflected in her personal correspondence and diaries.
The Harriet Monroe Papers comprise 10.5 linear feet of literary and family correspondence, drafts of her poems and her autobiography, A Poet's Life, and papers related to lectures, essays, and her anthology, The New Poetry. The material is arranged according to the following outline.
Series I: CORRESPONDENCE
Series II: DIARIES, PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA
Series III: HARRIET MONROE'S ESTATE
Series IV: A POET'S LIFE
Series V: WRITINGS
Series VI: THE NEW POETRY
Series VII: CLIPPINGS
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/select.html
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Records
Series I: Correspondence |
These letters illustrate the manifold interests and activities that absorbed Harriet Monroe outside of her central career as editor of Poetry. They shed light on her as a playwright and a poet, art-critic for the Chicago Tribune, conservationist (especially interested in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley), energetic worker for peace and civic improvement, and the recipient of many honors and awards.
Subseries 1, Personal Correspondence includes letters from many distinguished correspondents in these various fields, most notably Jane Addams, Daniel French, Herbert Adams, Carter Harrison, Maude Elliott, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Eugene Field, E.C. Stedman, Louis Sullivan, Rebecca West, William Allen White, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Charles Zueblin, and William Vaughn Moody. The file of Robert Louis Stevenson's correspondence to Monroe also includes her manuscript about Stevenson and other related material.
Some interesting letters to Harriet Monroe from her sister Lucy Calhoun and her brother-in-law William J. Calhoun are included here, written when the latter was serving as United States Minister to China at Peking, at the time of the launching in 1912 of the Chinese Republic.
Subseries 2 contains Harriet Monroe's personal letters to family and friends written by her between 1873 and 1936, as well as other outgoing correspondence. Notable among them are the following-
1873, Monroe wrote 2 letters to "a beloved friend, Mattie" when she was twelve years old, the earliest letters in the collection.
1877-1879, A series of 10 letters to family and friends from the convent at Georgetown where she attended school.
1888-1889, Written from New York to her family in Chicago. Describe visits with the poet E. C. Stedman. Include the 30-page letter of June 3, 1888 describing her interview with Robert Louis Stevenson.
1897-1898, First travel letters from Europe where Monroe went after winning her famous suit against the New York World.
1899, A description of a party given in the "Little Room" in the Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
1910, More travel letters, written on Monroe's trip around the world, from Moscow, Siberia, etc. Upon return from this tour her "birth of an idea"-to found a poetry magazine-occurred.
1923, Travel letters, this time recording her meetings with poets abroad. "The first poet I met was Harold Monro."
1936, Last travel letters from Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires to Morton Zabel and Geraldine Udell who were carrying on the magazine in Monroe's absence. One of these letters was received after notice of her death had been cabled.
The Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1925 and in that first year Monroe wrote to Henry Allen Moe giving her opinion of Sharmel Iris, one of the applicants for the scholarship. After this Monroe corresponded regularly with Moe until 1936. In 1932 she joined the Advisory Committee of the Foundation for a four-year term. Her letters contain suggestions of poets whom she thought worthy of awards, endorsements of candidates under consideration, and strong remonstrances for what she considered the neglect of creative artists, especially poets of the Midwest.
Over 80 carbon copies of Monroe's letters to other editors are included in her correspondence with other editor-publishers (folders 8-12) which throw light on Monroe's relationship with them and her opinions as an editor. Two letters here are especially valuable historically; the letter from Ferris Greenslea (Houghton Mifflin) dated March 8, 1910 in which he comments on "the present state of public inattention to anything in verse form," which was the state of affairs that fired her determination to start a magazine for poets, and the letter from Edward J. O'Brien of the Four Seas Company, Boston, dated September 20, 1912, announcing his forthcoming magazine to be called Poetry. This alarmed Monroe into advancing the date of her first issue of Poetry, which had already been announced and which she feared was to be forestalled by the rival Boston publication.
Subseries 1: General Correspondence |
| Box 1 Folder 1 | A
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| Box 1 Folder 2 | B
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| Box 1 Folder 3 | C
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| Box 1 Folder 4 | D
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| Box 1 Folder 5 | E
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| Box 1 Folder 6 | F
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| Box 1 Folder 6A | Field, Eugene |
| Box 1 Folder 7 | G
|
| Box 1 Folder 8 | H
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| Box 1 Folder 9 | I
|
| Box 1 Folder 10 | J
|
| Box 1 Folder 11 | K
|
| Box 1 Folder 12 | L
|
| Box 1 Folder 13 | MacLaine, Mary |
| Box 1 Folder 14 | M-MI
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| Box 1 Folder 15 | MO-MY
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| Box 2 Folder 1 | N-O
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| Box 2 Folder 2 | Patchell, William T. |
| Box 2 Folder 3 | Patchell, William T. |
| Box 2 Folder 4 | P-PI
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| Box 2 Folder 5 | PO-Q
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| Box 2 Folder 6 | R-ROL
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| Box 2 Folder 7 | ROO-RY
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| Box 2 Folder 8 | SA-SK
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| Box 2 Folder 9 | SL-SZ
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| Box 2 Folder 10 | Stevenson, Robert Louis |
| Box 2 Folder 11 | Stevenson, Robert Louis |
| Box 2 Folder 12 | TA-V
|
| Box 2 Folder 13 | W-Z
|
Subseries 2: Family and Miscellaneous Correspondence |
| Box 3 Folder 1 | Letters, 1873-1877 |
| Box 3 Folder 2 | Letters, 1878-1879 |
| Box 3 Folder 3 | Letters, 1888-1889 |
| Box 3 Folder 4 | Letters, 1898-1899 |
| Box 3 Folder 5 | Letters, 1907-1911 |
| Box 3 Folder 6 | Letters, 1923-1936 and undated |
| Box 3 Folder 7 | Guggenheim Foundation |
| Box 3 Folder 8 | General correspondence with publishers and editors, 1910-1917 |
| Box 3 Folder 9 | General correspondence with publishers and editors, 1919-1936 |
| Box 3 Folder 10 | General correspondence with Macmillan Co., 1922-29 |
| Box 3 Folder 11 | General correspondence with Macmillan Co., 1930-32 |
| Box 3 Folder 12 | General correspondence with Macmillan Co., 1933-36 |
Series II: Diaries, Photographs and Memorabilia |
Series II includes diaries documenting Monroe’s daily life and travels around the world. The earliest starts with the events of the 1881 Christmas season and covers the year 1882 and includes descriptions of dances, parties, the toilettes of her friends and the men with whom she danced the "German." On Monday June 19th she records "My first appearance in print!" Special attention is given to Oscar Wilde, who was giving lectures in Chicago in February and March and to a description of Edwin Booth's Hamlet, and her own idea of how Hamlet should be played. A later diary notes the fate of the men convicted in the Haymarket Affair. November 11, 1887, 11:30 AM - "At this hour Spies, Parsons, Engel and Fischer, four of the seven anarchists, are dying or preparing to die." Monroe’s Guestbook for 1919-1921 was kept in the office of Poetry and contains remarks by visitors including Amy Lowell, Eunice Tietjens, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg
The photographs are a heterogeneous collection of people and places arranged alphabetically. Many pictures of the Monroe clan; Mitchells, Monroes, Fetchers, and Roots; pictures of the actress Mary Anderson, and of Sarah Cowell LeMoyne who read a portion of The Columbian Ode by Monroe at the dedication ceremonies of the World's Columbian Exposition; thirteen pictures of buildings and views of the Exposition; a photograph of the actor Henry Irving (see note on Irving in 1882 diary-Box 4 folder 2). Pictures labeled by Monroe as Deerfield Minuet pictures are dated 1892 (taken of a dance to inaugurate the restoration of the old ballroom in the inn at Deerfield, Mass.) show Monroe as one of the dancers
| Box 4 Folder 1 | Diary, December 1881-August 1882 |
| Box 4 Folder 2 | "Notebook of Anecdotes, Conversations, etc." Vol. I, August 1882 |
| Box 4 Folder 3 | "Notebook of Anecdotes, Conversations, etc." Vol. II, September 1885 |
| Box 4 Folder 4 | Diary, 1897-1898, 2 volumes |
| Box 4 Folder 5 | Receipt and Expense Book, 1908-1910 |
| Box 4 Folder 6 | Harriet Monroe's Guest Book, Jan. 1919-Dec. 1921 |
| Box 4 Folder 7 | Mexican and Mississippi trip diaries, 1933, 1935 |
| Box 4 Folder 8 | China Diary, 1934-1935, 3 vols. |
| Box 4 Folder 9 | South American diary of 1936, written on Monroe's last trip; notes |
| Box 4 Folder 10 | South American souvenirs, including calling cards, programs, photographs from South America. |
| Box 4 Folder 11 | Newspaper clippings from South American papers |
| Box 4 Folder 12 | Regarding HM’s death; negatives, letters, photographs, newspaper clippings.
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| Box 4 Folder 13 | Passports, receipt in Russian, program for The Man Eagle: A Play in Two Acts by HM |
| Box 4 Folder 14 | Programs, press releases, Modern Poetry by Harriet Monroe, certificate of appreciation from the organizers of the 1893 World’s Fair, dispatches to the US Department of State, Christmas card from Monroe, envelopes with Monroe’s addres, obituary published by Poetry Magazine. |
| Box 4 Folder 15 | General Memorabilia; clippings on HM |
| Box 4 Folder 16 | Steel plate of HS Monroe, Monroe coat of arms, Letter from Harry S. Monroe to The Times, memorial for Martha Mitchell Monroe |
| Box 4 Folder 17 | Photograph and program regarding the launching of the SS Harriet Monroe, 11 January 1944 |
| Box 4 Folder 18 | Programs, The New Century Theatre |
| Box 5 Folder 1 | Photographs
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| Box 5 Folder 2 | Photographs
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| Box 5 Folder 3 | Photographs
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| Box 5 Folder 4 | Photographs
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| Box 5 Folder 5 | Photographs
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| Box 5 Folder 6 | Christmas cards, A-B |
| Box 5 Folder 7 | Christmas cards, C-D |
| Box 5 Folder 8 | Christmas cards, E-H |
| Box 5 Folder 9 | Christmas cards, J-O |
| Box 5 Folder 10 | Christmas cards, P-Siddall |
| Box 5 Folder 11 | Christmas cards, Silver-Y and Unidentified |
Series III: Harriet Monroe’s Estate |
Of biographical importance for studies of Harriet Monroe and significant for research into the history of Poetry are these business papers. Of special interest; an early statement in a letter, typed, not signed, from Monroe to her executors dated April 21, 1923 concerning her property as editor of Poetry "consisting of mss., letters, photographs, books (often autographed)"; "You may feel that it should be presented intact-to either Newberry Library, the Chicago Public Library, or the Chicago Historical Society"; a copy of the receipt of the University of Chicago on the bequest Monroe was making in its favor, giving the University's agreement "to keep and maintain said poetry library," dated April 23, 1931; letters received as tributes to Monroe after her death from H.L. Davis, Elizabeth Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, et al.; letters concerning the erection of the bronze plaque in Arequipa to mark Monroe's grave; letters from Mrs. Allen Simple describing Monroe's last days.
| Box 6 Folder 1 | Correspondence re; disposition of Poetry |
| Box 6 Folder 2 | Monroe's letter to executors and inventory, April 23, 1923 |
| Box 6 Folder 3 | Bank statements of Monroe's estate |
| Box 6 Folder 4 | Probate court documents |
| Box 6 Folder 5 | Bank accounts, stocks, etc. of estate |
| Box 6 Folder 6 | Royalty contracts |
| Box 6 Folder 7 | William S. Monroe's Harriet Monroe file, 1936 |
| Box 6 Folder 8 | William S. Monroe's Harriet Monroe file, 1937 |
| Box 6 Folder 9 | William S. Monroe's Harriet Monroe file, 1938-1944 |
Series VI: A Poet’s Life |
A letter (ALS) dated August 18, 1936 from Monroe to her brother, William S. Monroe, written from the S.S. Southern Cross states; "...autobiography unfinished, Geraldine Udell is the only one who knows where it is and its condition, and who could consult with Mr. Latham of the Macmillan Co. and put the finished part in order for publication....For this difficult job Geraldine is to be liberally paid, either outright from my estate or by a good share of the royalties from the book."
In carrying out this job Udell had to obtain permission from the poets for direct quotations Monroe makes in the book. She wrote to the poets-her carbons are included in this box-and most of the poets agreed briefly and warmly to allow the quotations. Included are letters from Richard Aldington, Witter Bynner, Robert Frost, and Louis Untermeyer. Only Ezra Pound made an issue of this request, demanding certain specific arrangements-he wanted a black line or border down the page!-but he ultimately granted permission. His letters, and his comments and notations on the typed copy of the material Monroe had written containing quotations from his letters, form an interesting small body of material.
Subseries 1: Geraldine Udell’s Correspondence |
| Box 7 Folder 1 | Udell-Macmillan correspondence, Sept. 28, 1936-Oct. 18, 1937 |
| Box 7 Folder 2 | Udell-Macmillam correspondence, Nov. 1, 1937-Dec. 30, 1937 |
| Box 7 Folder 3 | Udell-Macmillan correspondence, Jan. 1938-June 1938 |
| Box 7 Folder 4 | Permission for photos and quotations (not listed are many of the letters addressed to publishers);
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| Box 7 Folder 5 | Permission for photos and quotations
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| Box 7 Folder 6 | Permission for photos and quotations
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| Box 7 Folder 7 | Permission for photos and quotations
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Subseries 2: Drafts and Notes |
| Box 8 Folder 1 | Main body of first draft, autograph |
| Box 8 Folder 2 | Fragments, addenda, autograph |
| Box 8 Folder 3 | Monroe's notes and correspondence re; autobiography |
| Box 8 Folder 4 | Typewritten fragment |
| Box 8 Folder 5 | Literary Mss in A Poet’s Life file, earliest poems (1875, 1879, 1884) |
| Box 9 Folder 1 | Early typewritten draft, pp 1-100 |
| Box 9 Folder 2 | Early typewritten draft, pp 100-198 |
| Box 9 Folder 3 | Early typewritten draft, pp 1a-123a |
| Box 9 Folder 4 | Early typewritten draft, pp 1-43 |
| Box 9 Folder 5 | Later draft, pp 1-112 |
| Box 9 Folder 6 | Later draft, pp 263-356 |
Series V: Writings |
Subseries 1: Essays and Lectures on English Poetry and Arts |
| Box 10 Folder 1 | Chaucer, English Rhythms, etc.
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| Box 10 Folder 2 | Spenser
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| Box 10 Folder 3 | Shakespeare, The Lyric Shakespeare
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| Box 10 Folder 4 | Milton, Shelley
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| Box 10 Folder 5 | Modern Tendencies in Poetry, American Poetry
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| Box 10 Folder 6 | Miscellaneous writings on the arts, chiefly painting
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| Box 10 Folder 7 | Index and clippings, Monroe's articles on art, Chicago Tribune, 1909-1914 |
Subseries 2: Essays and Short Stories |
| Box 11 Folder 1 | "Reflective Essays"
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| Box 11 Folder 2 | "Wilderness Essays" (1)
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| Box 11 Folder 3 | "Wilderness Essays" (2)
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| Box 11 Folder 4 | Articles and Stories on the West
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| Box 11 Folder 5 | Miscellaneous Writings on Poetry and Poetry
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| Box 11 Folder 6 | Short Stories
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| Box 11 Folder 7 | Purple and Gold (2), AS, 45 pp
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Subseries 3: Lectures and Lecture Material |
| Box 12 Folder 1 | Verse from Poetry used in lectures (July 28, 1920) |
| Box 12 Folder 2 | Prose from Poetry used in lectures |
| Box 12 Folder 3 | Lecture notes; "Poetry and the Great War" |
| Box 12 Folder 4 | Lecture and lecture notes; Poetry's First Decade (1) |
| Box 12 Folder 5 | Lecture and lecture notes; Poetry's First Decade (2) |
Subseries 4: Editorials and Reviews From Poetry, Other Writings |
| Box 13 Folder 1 | Poetry editorials used in Poets and their Art |
| Box 13 Folder 2 | Mss of Poetry prose (1) |
| Box 13 Folder 3 | Mss of Poetry prose (2) |
| Box 13 Folder 4 | Scripts of radio broadcasts |
| Box 13 Folder 5 | "Brief Biography"-reviews of Monroe's work |
| Box 13 Folder 6 | Poems for Children; introductions, contents, etc |
| Box 13 Folder 7 | Miscellaneous and unidentified prose |
Subseries 5: Plays |
| Box 14 Folder 1 | The Golden Ledge (verse play), Incomplete-includes studies and reworkings, various pagings |
| Box 14 Folder 2 | The Happy Isles (typescript), Tc, 28+36+27+24 numbered pages |
| Box 14 Folder 3 | The Happy Isles (6th version), A, 39+39+41+35 |
| Box 14 Folder 4 | The Happy Isles (fragment, typescript); discarded pages, T, |
| Box 14 Folder 5 | Little Davy. Sept. 23, 1917, from Elisha Coon; 2-page memorandum in Monroe's hand. (Also Florence Bradley's opinion of play), Tc, 49 pp; Little Davy; A Play in Three Acts, T, 39 pp |
| Box 14 Folder 6 | Plays
|
Subseries 6: The Columbian Ode |
| Box 15 Folder 1 | General Correspondence concerning The Columbian Ode |
| Box 15 Folder 2 | Legal papers |
| Box 15 Folder 3 | Miscellaneous materials concerning Exposition 11 copies of the Ode, unfoldered |
Subseries 7: Poetry in Manuscript, Arranged by First Line |
| Box 16 Folder 1 | A-B |
| Box 16 Folder 2 | C-D |
| Box 16 Folder 3 | E-F |
| Box 16 Folder 4 | G-H |
| Box 16 Folder 5 | I-J |
| Box 16 Folder 6 | K-L |
| Box 16 Folder 7 | M-N |
| Box 16 Folder 8 | O-P |
| Box 16 Folder 9 | R-S |
| Box 16 Folder 10 | T-V |
| Box 16 Folder 11 | W-Z |
| Box 16 Folder 12 | Addenda |
Subseries 8: Proofs and galleys of Monroe’s Poetry |
| Box 17 Folder 1 | Chosen Poems-Review, Notes, 2nd galley (1.) |
| Box 17 Folder 2 | Chosen Poems-2nd galley |
| Box 17 Folder 3 | Chosen Poems-Proofs for radio use |
| Box 17 Folder 4 | Chosen Poems-Proofs |
| Box 17 Folder 5 | The Difference-Proofs (1) |
| Box 17 Folder 6 | The Difference-Proofs (2) |
| Box 17 Folder 7 | The Difference-Proofs (3) |
| Box 17 Folder 8 | The Difference-Proofs (4) |
| Box 17 Folder 9 | The Difference-Proofs (5) |
| Box 17 Folder 10 | You and I-proofs |
| Box 17 Folder 11 | Valeria-Copyright |
Series VI: The New Poetry |
The correspondence about the first edition of The New Poetry, the anthology edited by Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson, contains the letters Monroe exchanged with the editors of Macmillan’s. Henderson fell ill of tuberculosis at the outset of plans for the anthology so that the full burden of the correspondence, the selection of poems and writing for permission to publish, in fact all of the editorial work of getting out the book, fell upon Monroe.
In a letter of August 18, 1916, the editor Edward Marsh commented; "I feel sure that you will be criticized for a principle of selection that omits Alfred Noyes and includes Hardy, Hueffer, Mrs. Meynell and others, or that gives upwards of 20 pages to Pound, Lindsay, and Masters and comparatively brief space to Gibson, Masefield, and MacKaye." Monroe fought for her right as editor to use her own judgment and when Marsh further criticized her for favoritism toward the poets who had appeared in her magazine Monroe replied; "The fact that these poets, except Masters, have appeared mostly in Poetry is a happy accident, highly complimentary to the magazine; but it has not influenced our judgment." (August 7, 1916, to W. B. Henderson of Macmillan's) Monroe maintained that what she was doing as editor of the anthology was "to stress the poets whom we consider important in the new movement, and give a much smaller space to those who, however excellent belong rather to a more conservative group."
Included in this section are letters from publishers and poets either declining or granting permission to publish their works.
Subseries 1: First edition |
| Box 18 Folder 1 | Macmillan correspondence, Apr 23, 1915-Oct 31, 1916 |
| Box 18 Folder 2 | Macmillan correspondence, Nov 1, 1916-Jun 14, 1921 |
| Box 18 Folder 3 | Poems withdrawn (by poet) A-H |
| Box 18 Folder 4 | Poems withdrawn K-O |
| Box 18 Folder 5 | Poems withdrawn P-Y |
| Box 18 Folder 6 | Consents and Refusals A-F
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| Box 18 Folder 7 | Garland, Mary Isabel
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Subseries 2: Second Edition |
| Box 19 Folder 1 | Alice Corbin Henderson's contracts, suggestions |
| Box 19 Folder 2 | Macmillan correspondence 1921Folder-1923 |
| Box 19 Folder 3 | Consents and refusals A-H
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| Box 19 Folder 4 | Consents and refusals, J-Z
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| Box 19 Folder 5 | Transcript of book (1) |
| Box 19 Folder 6 | Transcript of book (2) |
| Box 19 Folder 7 | Transcript of book (3) |
| Box 19 Folder 8 | Transcript of book (4) |
| Box 19 Folder 9 | Transcript of book (5) |
| Box 19 Folder 10 | Copy in sheets pp 1-170 |
| Box 19 Folder 11 | Copy in sheets pp 71-394 |
| Box 19 Folder 12 | Copy in sheets pp 395-640 |
Subseries 3: Third Edition, Poems for Every Mood |
| Box 20 Folder 1 | New Poetry; Notes and Henderson correspondence |
| Box 20 Folder 2 | Macmillan correspondence, 1931-32 |
| Box 20 Folder 3 | New Poems |
| Box 20 Folder 4 | Consents and refusals by poet A-D
|
| Box 20 Folder 5 | Consents and refusals by poets E-Z
|
| Box 20 Folder 6 | New Poetry- Miscellaneous and permission notes |
| Box 20 Folder 7 | Biographies A-L |
| Box 20 Folder 8 | Biographies M-Z |
| Box 20 Folder 9 | Poems for Every Mood; Notes and Correspondence |
| Box 20 Folder 10 | Contents (1) |
| Box 20 Folder 11 | Contents (2); Poems (1) |
| Box 20 Folder 12 | Poems (20) |
Series VII: Clippings |
| Box 21 Folder 1-6 | Includes mounted clippings of press stories about Poetry's benefit series of lectures 1943 |
| Box 21 Folder 2 | Includes several front pages of Reedy’s Mirror, Feb 11. 1916 (v. 25, no. 6) containing an article on poetry by Monroe; clippings about Ezra Pound; contemporary reviews of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Murder in the Cathedral |