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Theodore Watts-Dunton Collection
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
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.
The collection was formed as a result of a Departmental practice of combining into one collection material of various accessions relating to a particular person, family, or subject.
Material in the collection was purchased from different sources over a period of several years.
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
Folder inventory added by Nicholas Williams '2015 in 2012.
No appraisal information is available.
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- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Date
- 2008
- Access Restrictions
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Collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
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9 secretarial letters by Theodore Watts-Dunton, seven of them signed by him, to the journalist and publicist Sydney Walton, regarding an interview in the Morning Post, with references to Swinburne and Tennyson, and an assessment of his own merits
Physical Description1 folder