Call Number:

C1336

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

Persian

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); James Elroy Flecker Collection, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1907-1915 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Flecker, James Elroy, 1884-1915

Form:

Letters -- 20th century., Manuscripts -- 20th century., photographs -- 20th century, and Poems -- 20th century.

Abstract:

Consists of selected correpondence and manuscripts of James Elroy Flecker, the English poet, novelist, and playwright.

James Elroy Flecker was an English poet, novelist, and playwright. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, and Caius College, Cambridge. From 1910 he was in the consular service in the Eastern Mediterranean. His most widely known poem is To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence . He died of tuberculosis in Davos, Switzerland. His death at the age of thirty was described at the time as "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats."

The collection consists of selected correpondence and manuscripts of James Elroy Flecker, the English poet, novelist, and playwright. Included are manuscripts of an autograph poem titled "Golden" and Flecker's final examination papers from the spring of 1910 at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was learning "Oriental" languages. The examination papers--in English as well as Arabic, Persian and Turkish--are in Flecker's hand and bear his signature at the top righthand corner of each page. The papers were translations from English into either Arabic, Persian, or Turkish, and from these languages to English. The examination papers were given by Flecker's Professor Browne to Sir Sydney Cockerell on May 3, 1920, for safekeeping.

Correspondence includes a note card to the publisher Elkin Matthews regarding the publishing of Flecker's book The Bridge of Fire . There are four letters and three postcards from Flecker to the British poet Harold Monro written from Beirut and Switzerland while he was ill, discussing his illness, poetry, and publishing his poems; and there is one letter addressed to "Masters." Also included is a silver gelatin print of Flecker, which was "Printed by Mesdames Morter, London."