Overview
Correspondence and compositions of American essayist and editor, Joseph Dennie. Also includes some family correspondence.
Dates
- Creation: 1783-1815
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
1 linear feet (2 boxes)The bulk of the collection includes letters to Joseph Dennie from literary and political colleagues, readers and subscribers of his various newspapers (especially the Farmer's Weekly Museum), and from hisHarvard College classmates during his rustication in 1790, when he lived under a chaplain's supervision in Groton, Mass. Letters by Dennie are mostly to his parents and contain detailed accounts of his life from his school days throughout his career. Manuscripts consist of essays, poems, verse translations, college and school notes and exercises, and fragments by Dennie. Includes an original manuscript of his first Farrago essay. Third-party correspondence is mostly to his mother, Mary (Green) Dennie, much of it after his death.
Biographical / Historical
An American essayist and editor, Joseph Dennie graduated from Harvard College in 1790 and was admitted to the bar in 1794. When his law practice failed to flourish, he turned to writing. Dennie wrote for weekly papers in Walpole, New Hampshire, Boston, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. He was closely associated with the Farmer's Weekly Museum of Walpole, for which he wrote "Lay Preacher" and which under his editorship (1796-1798) became a strong Federalist organ read throughout the union. He began The Port Folio, a weekly devoted to literature and politics which he established in 1801 in Philadelphia with bookseller Asbury Dickins. This magazine was considered without rival until the founding of the North American Review in 1815.
Arrangement
Arranged into the following series:
- I. Letters from Joseph Dennie
- II. Letters to Joseph Dennie
- III. Other letters
- IV. Compositions
Collection includes a hand-written list of the papers, compiled by H. M. Ellis.
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Miss Mary H. Dennie; received: 1913 May 15.
Mary H. Dennie was a granddaughter of Thomas Dennie, first cousin of Joseph Dennie.
- Title
- Dennie, Joseph, 1768-1812. Joseph Dennie papers, 1783-1815: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou00108
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
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