Call Number:

C0517

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

13 boxes

Language:

English and German

Date:

1868-1980 (inclusive) and 1922-1971 (bulk)

Creator:

Newton, Caroline, 1893-

Form:

Correspondence, Manuscripts., Notebooks., and Photographs, Original.

Abstract:

Consists of writings, correspondence, and other personal papers of Caroline Newton (1893-1975), an American translator, writer, psychoanalyst, and collector, including a group of family papers related to the Churchill and Jerome families. The majority of the materials relate to Thomas Mann, of whom Newton was a close friend and supporter, though some others pertain to her activities related to psychoanalysis as well as book and manuscript collecting.

Caroline Newton (1893-1975) was a writer, translator, psychoanalyst, book and manuscript collector, and literary patron. She studied under Sigmund Freud in Vienna and later practiced psychoanalysis at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Newton was the first woman member of the International Psychoanalytical Society, as well as a trustee of the School for Social Research. She translated various psychoanalytic works from German into English, as well as writings and letters by Thomas Mann (1875-1955) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

Newton was also a close friend and supporter of German novelist Thomas Mann. While working for the American Service Committee in Europe after World War I, Newton met Mann in Berlin in 1929. When Hitler came to power, she offered Mann and his family the use of her house in Jamestown, Rhode Island, and later helped them find a home in Princeton, New Jersey. After Mann's death, Newton established a series of commemorations in his honor, and helped to create a Thomas Mann collection at Princeton University. Newton died in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, at age 83.

This collection consists of personal papers of Caroline Newton (1893-1975), including manuscripts, typescripts, and notebooks containing her translations and other writings, correspondence, family papers, photographs, ephemera, printed materials, and writings of others. The writings are largely literary in nature and include unpublished manuscript translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann and Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, and a manuscript of The Letters of Thomas Mann to Caroline Newton (Princeton, N.J.: Privately published, 1971). Also present are Netwon's numerous writings and notes about Thomas Mann and other literary figures, as well as a smaller amount of notebooks and patient notes from her study and practice of psychoanalysis.

Newton's correspondence primarily pertains to Thomas Mann, publishing, and collecting, and her correspondents include W. H. Auden, Sigmund Freud, Sir Shane Leslie, Wilmarth S. Lewis, and others. Her correspondence with Katharina Hedwig Pringsheim Mann (also known as Katja or Katia, who was married to Thomas Mann) is particularly robust, spanning over one hundred letters across five decades. In addition, there is a collection of family papers about Leonard Jerome, Winston Churchill, and their families, which includes an unpublished manuscript, "The Life of Leonard Jerome of New York," and an essay, "Winston, a Cousinly Memory," both by Sir Shane Leslie. These family papers include original correspondence and photographs of both Jerome and Churchill. Also present are various personal ephemera and printed materials belonging to Newton, and a small selection of papers of others, which includes correspondence of Felix Dahn and Fritz Endres.