Call Number:

C1266

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Theodore Watts-Dunton Collection, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1878-1914 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 1832-1914

Form:

Correspondence -- 19th century

Abstract:

Consists of selected correspondence and a poem by the English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton.

Theodore Watts-Dunton was an English critic and poet. He is best remembered as the friend and caregiver of poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom he rescued from alcoholism. Later, he became a good friend of pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Watts-Dunton contributed regularly to the Examiner and to the Athenaeum from 1875 until 1898, being for more than twenty years the principal critic of poetry in the latter journal. He wrote widely for other publications and contributed several articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The collection consists of selected letters and a manuscript poem by Theodore Watts-Dunton. There are twenty-eight letters (1906-1913) to his friends Mr. and Mrs. Walter Jerrold, with a signed Christmas poem Watts-Dunton wrote for them, titled "A Gypsy Child's Christmas." There are eight letters (1905-1910) to editor Sir John Alexander Hammerton in which Watts-Dunton writes about George Meredith's tribute to Swinburne and gives Hammerton permission to reprint Swinburne's sonnet on Dickens and Watts-Dunton's own sonnet "Dickens Returns on Christmas Day." In his four letters (1913) to critic Francis Bickley, Watts-Dunton discusses Bickley's articles on Swinburne and on Matthew Prior. In a letter (1911) to the booksellers Henry Sotheran and Co., Watts-Dunton discusses his work Aylwin. Other correspondents include Ruth R. Chadwick, George Alexander Dewar, and Roden Noel.

The collection is arranged by accession number.