- Call number
- Pforz MS
- Physical description
- 6 volumes (containing 748 items)
- Preferred Citation
- The Blessington papers : manuscript albums, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
- Access to materials
- Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.
Best remembered for her Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron, Marguerite Gardner, Countess of Blessington, was active in British literary circles of the first half of the nineteenth century. She published several novels, and edited a handful of literary journals, including The Keepsake and The Book of Beauty. Richard Robert Madden had been a friend of Blessington's since 1821. His memoir of her, published six years after her death, has been criticized for its confusing arrangement and factual errors. Chiefly comprised of correspondence addressed to the Irish-born writer and literary hostess Lady Blessington, the Blessington Papers were compiled by Richard Robert Madden for the composition of his Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington (1855). Notable correspondents among the several hundred include the English novelist Charles Dickens, the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, and the English poet Walter Savage Landor. Also included are literary manuscripts; over forty are by Lady Blessingtion herself, while others are by submitters to the journals she edited. Much of the correspondence is published, both in Madden's life of Blessington, and in The Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents Formed by Alfred Morrison (2nd ser., 1882-1893), "The Blessington Papers" (1895).
Using the collection
Location
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His CircleStephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319