Call Number:

C0172

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 123 boxes
• 2 items
• 50 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Ridgely Torrence Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1833-1952 (inclusive) and 1890-1951 (bulk)

Creator:

Torrence, Ridgely, 1875-1950

Form:

Daguerreotypes., Diaries -- 20th century., Poems -- 20th century., and Report cards -- 19th century.

Abstract:

Ridgely Torrence was an American poet, playwright, and editor of The New Republic, and his papers document the literary activity and relationship of a large group of American writers between the years 1890 and 1950. Particularly well-represented are American poets William Vaughn Moody and Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Ridgely Torrence was an American poet, playwright, and editor of The New Republic. Born in 1875 in Xenia, Ohio, Torrence attended Miami University for two years before entering Princeton University as a junior. While at Princeton, he served on the editorial boards of the Nassau Literary Magazine and the Princeton Tiger. Upon graduation, Torrence moved to New York, where he worked as an editor of the Cosmopolitan and as poetry editor of The New Republic from 1920 to 1933. He published several books of verse, but he is better known for his close relationships with American poets and writers like Robert Frost, Edwin Markham, William Vaughn Moody, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. Torrence died in 1950.

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.

The collection has been organized into 8 series: Series: I. Works, II. Correspondence, III. Papers of Persons Other Than Ridgely Torrence, IV. Torrence Family, V. Printed Matter and Clippings, VI. Christmas Cards and Envelopes, VII. Genealogical and Biographical Information, and VIII. Ephemera.