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Ridgely Torrence Papers

The Papers illustrate the literary activity and relationship of a large group of
American writers, primarily poets, between the years 1890 and 1950. Approximately
10,000 letters between Torrence (Princeton Class of 1897), his family and friends,
plus manuscripts of his work and those of his literary friends, exist in the
collection. In addition, there are documents, scrapbooks, diaries, report cards from
Torrence's Miami College (Oxford) and Princeton University days, daguerreotypes and
photographs, memorabilia, and genealogical records, some dating as early as 1833.Torrence's career as poet, playwright, and editor ( New
Republic) is documented through manuscripts and/or typescripts of his
poems, plays, and short stories, lecture notes, and personal and business (editorial)
correspondence. Manuscripts for Torrence's biography The Story
of John Hope (1948), The Selected Letters of Edwin
Arlington Robinson (1940), and his plays Abelard and
Heloise, El Dorado, and The Madstone are among those present. Letters and manuscripts of numerous
literary friends and other poets submitting poems to the New
Republic are included in the correspondence series.In the series for papers of others are works and correspondence of Olivia Dunbar
Torrence, including her Life of William Vaughn Moody;
works, correspondence, and other material about Moody, such as his The Great Divide, Letters to
Harriet, and Sabine Women; Boris Todrin's
At the Gate and Other Poems; Alice Beal Parson's
John Merrill's Pleasant Life; Joy to my Soul and Little Ham by Langston
Hughes; and a complete holograph copy of Edwin Arlington Robinson's Matthias at the Door.Among the writers well-represented in the collection are Robert Frost, Margaret
Fuller, Louis Vernon Ledoux, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Percy MacKaye, Edwin Markham,
Daniel Gregory Mason, William Vaughn Moody, Josephine Preston Peabody, Edwin
Arlington Robinson, and Laura Stedman.