Collections : [Yale University -Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

The collection consists of correspondence, writings, and drawings by or related to William Makepeace Thackeray. Correspondence includes letters written by Thackeray to colleagues such as Connop Thirlwall and William Webb Follett Synge, and letters to Thackeray from potential conributors to Cornhill Magazine. Writings include an autograph manuscript of a chapter of The Adventures of Philip, an autograph poem parodying Goethe's Werther, and an autograph manuscript notebook with memoranda, drawings, and quotations from American history, used by Thackeray while writing The Virginians. Also present are sixteen sketches in watercolor and graphite by Thackeray, two groups of ink illustrations for Thackeray's writings by John Priestman Atkinson, and a portrait of Thackeray by an unidentified artist.

The William McFee Collection contains correspondence between McFee and literary colleagues, publishers, friends, and family; third-party correspondence concerning McFee, his family, and his friendship with James T. Babb; autograph manuscript or typescript drafts for most of McFee's novels, and for short stories, essays, books reviews, and poems; autograph manuscript diaries, 1911-1963; writings of others, including Margery Allingham and Beatrice Allender McFee; photographs of McFee and others; drawings of McFee and illustrations for his writings by Arthur J. Elder and others; a bronze bust of McFee by Jason Sturm (Yale 1922); scrapbooks containing clippings about McFee, reviews of his writings, photographs, and ephemera; other clippings about McFee; personal papers, mostly concerning McFee's family or his work as a marine engineer; correspondence relating to Babb's collecting of books and manuscripts by McFee, and research materials and drafts for A Bibliography of the Writings of William McFee; audiotapes relating to McFee's 75th birthday in 1956; and films and videocassettes of McFee and his family. Major correspondents include Margery Allingham, other members of the Allingham family, James T. Babb, Van Wyck Brooks, Arthur J. Elder, George T. Keating, Beatrice Allender McFee, other members of the McFee family, Byrne Marconnier, Harry E. Maule, Christopher Morley, Dudley Nichols, and Frank Swinnerton.

Letters by Rossetti to various parties, including James Jackson Jarves and Eric Sutherland Robertson; two manuscript pieces: a "brief critique of British artists exhibiting in a British exhibition touring America," and an essay on Ruskin; and a signature clipped from a letter.

The collection consists of seven letters written by William Morris to friends and acquaintances, and a group of autograph manuscripts by Morris. One manuscript, "The Wood Beyond the World," is accompanied by a drawing made for the book by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, and two impressions of the resulting engraving. Also present is a letter to the American collector Dean Sage regarding one of the manuscripts.

Notes, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, typescripts, and printed material related to William Peterfield Trent's unpublished biography and bibliography of Daniel Defoe; and correspondence, notes, and printed material related to William Clinton Hutchins's editorial work on Trent's manuscripts.

Correspondence, writings, and other papers that document the lives and work of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778) and his son, William Pitt (1759-1806). Correspondents include John Murray, Duke of Atholl;George Nugent Temple Grenville, Marquess of Buckingham; Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke; and George William Frederick Osborne, Duke of Leeds.

Contains original artwork, including drawings, color separations, and reproduction proofs, for children's books published by William R. Scott, Inc.

The Williams Family Papers consists of correspondence, writings, documents, and financial records kept by descendants of William Williams who lived in and near Wethersfield, Connecticut, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The papers are those of Elisha Williams, his second wife Elizabeth Scott Williams Smith, and his nephew Ezekiel Williams, merchant and sheriff of Hartford County. The correspondence is with family members and associates; the writings consist of sermons and essays by family members; documents are primarily related to the settlement of Elizabeth Smith's estate in the United States and England. Other papers include an engraved circular letter from London publisher James Rivington advertising a new edition of a work by Philip Doddridge.