Konstantin Balmont correspondence with the Noble family
Overview
Correspondence of Russian poet Konstantin Balmont and his American translator and friend Lydia Noble, her mother Lydia Lvovna Pimenoff-Noble, and her sister Beatrice Noble.
Dates
- Creation: 1925-1943
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in Russian and English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
1 linear feet (3 boxes)Includes letters and postcards from Konstantin Balmont to Lydia Noble, Lydia Lvovna Pimenoff-Noble, Beatrice Noble, and Edmund Noble, as well as drafts of letters from the Noble family to Balmont. Also includes correspondence of Lydia Noble with Vincent Yardley Bowditch, Olin Downes and Mr. Leonid Tulpa, primarily about Konstantin Balmont, and a few other letters. The collection also includes manuscripts and typescripts of Konstantin Balmont's poems dedicated to Lydia and Beatrice Noble, and to Lydia Lvovna Pimenoff-Noble, translations of Lydia Noble poems into Russian by Balmont, and photographs of the Noble family and Konstantin Balmont.
The collection also includes transcripts of letters and English translations of letters in Russian, with notes and commentaries, by Beatrice Noble. Originals of some transcribed letters not received as part of collection. Transcripts and translations are filed together with the originals. Missing originals are indicated.
Biographical / Historical
Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont [Константин Дмитриевич Бальмонт] was a Russian symbolist poet and translator, a major figure of the Silver Age of Russian poetry. Despite his early participation in student demonstrations and writing of revolutionary poetry for which in 1901 he had been banned from living in the University cities for three years, he grew disappointed with the October Revolution and in 1920 left Russia for good and settled in France.
Lydia [Lilly] Noble (1884-1929) was a poet and translator born into the family of a prominent British journalist Edmund Noble (1853-1937) and his Russian-born wife Lydia Lvovna Pimenoff-Noble [Лидия Львовна Пименова-Нобль] (1865-1934). She was born in Russia, but raised together with her younger sister Beatrice Noble (1886-?) in Malden, Massachusetts after the family moved to the United States where her father worked as a correspondent of the Boston Herald. Konstantin Balmont became a friend of the family, particularly, Lydia Lvovna Pimenoff-Noble and Lydia Noble. Lydia Noble translated poems and articles of Balmont into English. She was also a poet and essayist in her own right, and some of her poems were translated into Russian by Konstantin Balmont.
Arrangement
Arranged into the following series:
- I. Correspondence
- II. Poems and other material
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
49M-263. Gift of Beatrice Noble; received: 1950 May 29.
Processing Information
Processed by: Irina Klyagin
- Title
- Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrievich, 1867-1942. Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont correspondence with the Noble family, 1925-1943: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02226
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
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