Call Number:

C0675

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 4 boxes
• 4.5 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Ruth E. and Edward M. Brecher Collection on William F. Mannix, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1950-1965 (inclusive)

Creator:

Brecher, Edward M. (Edward Moritz), 1911-1989

Abstract:

Consists of papers gathered and generated by Ruth E. and Edward M. Brecher while researching the life of William Francis Mannix (1870?-1920), a journalist, soldier of fortune, grafter, and literary forger, for a proposed biography that was never completed. Included are manuscript drafts, correspondence and documents relating to Mannix's background, psychopathic personalities, and literary forgeries.

Edward Moritz Brecher (1911-1989) was an American editor, science and medical writer, and journalist.

The collection consists of papers gathered and generated by Ruth E. and Edward M. Brecher while researching the life of William Francis Mannix (1870?-1920), a journalist, soldier of fortune, grafter, and literary forger, for a proposed biography that was never completed. Included are manuscript drafts; correspondence with Ralph D. Paine, Mabel Scudder, Mrs. Mannix, and others about Mannix; copies of his birth, marriage, and army records; and other letters, notes, and clippings on Mannix's background, psychopathic personalities, and literary forgeries.

Also present is material concerning the book Memoirs of Li Hung Chang (1913), edited by Mannix, which later proved to be a fabrication, and about a collection of love letters supposedly written by Abraham Lincoln to Ann Rutledge, published by the Atlantic Monthly in 1929, and later thought to have been forged by Mannix.

This is an unprocessed collection and remains in its original arrangement.

NOTE: The collection consists of four record-center cartons. This contents list was created mainly from labels affixed to placards separating the materials in each box.