Overview
Compositions, letters, and other papers of the American writer Robert Lowell.
Dates
- Creation: 1861-1977
- Creation: Majority of material found in 1935-1970
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Restricted: fragile; consult curatorial staff, items: 2202-2204, 2267, 2293
Letters soley by or to Elizabeth Hardwick were available for research only with her permission during her lifetime; this restricted ended in December 2007.
Conditions Governing Use
Images linked to this finding aid are intended for public access and educational use. This material is owned and/or held by the Houghton Library, and is provided solely for the purpose of teaching or individual research. Any other use, including commercial reuse, mounting on other systems, or other forms of redistribution requires the permission of the curator.
Extent
8.75 linear feet (34 boxes)Approximately two-thirds of the collection is compositions by Lowell. These consist of manuscripts of his poems, both published and unpublished, in various forms from heavily revised drafts to galley proofs, as well as autobiographical and miscellaneous prose. The correspondence is with other writers and family members and concerns his writing and his personal life. Major correspondents include his second wife Elizabeth Hardwick, Elizabeth Bishop, Peter Taylor, Allen Tate, and Randall Jarrell. Also includes third party correspondence, manuscripts by others, legal papers and documents, photographs, printed material, and a title index to Lowell's manuscripts in the collection.
Biographical / Historical
Lowell was an American poet.
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- I. Letters to Robert Lowell
- II. Letters from Robert Lowell
- III. Letters to Elizabeth Hardwick
- IV. Other letters
- V. Compositions by Robert Lowell
- A. Early poems: 1935-1938
- B. Land of unlikeness
- C. Lord Weary's castle
- D. Uncollected poems: 1938-1946
- E. The mills of the Kavanaughs
- F. Uncollected poems: 1946-1951
- G. Life studies
- H. Autobiographical prose
- I. Uncollected poems: 1951-1959
- J. Imitations
- K. For the union dead
- L. The Old Glory
- M. Prometheus bound
- N. The Agamemnon, Orestes and Phaedra
- O. Near the ocean
- P. Notebook: worksheets
- Q. Notebook: lists of revisions
- R. Notebook: photocopies and galley proofs
- S. Notebook: unpublished drafts
- T. Uncollected poems: 1959-1970
- U. Uncollected translations
- V. Miscellaneous prose
- VI. Documents, legal papers, photographs, etc.
- VII. Other papers
- Additions to collection
Please note that item numbers 2424 and 2808 were inadvertently omitted from this finding aid.
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
*73M-90. Purchased from Robert Lowell; received: 1973.
Letters to Frank Bidart were purchased from Bidart, 1977.
Evaluations of student compositions were a gift of William Alfred, 1978.
2020M-2. Purchased with funds from the Amy Lowell Trust, 2019. This material was previously on deposit at the Houghton Library, 1988-2018, with the accession number *88M-73.
Processing Information
This finding aid was reviewed in 2024 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. Given the context and placement of the term in a formal title, it has been left as is. A contextual note situating the usage of the term has been added. If you have questions or comments about these revisions, please contact Houghton Library. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.
- Title
- Lowell, Robert, 1917-1977. Robert Lowell papers, 1861-1977 (MS Am 1905): Guide.
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hou00658
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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