Scope and arrangement
The Thomas Medwin manuscript material is arranged in three series:
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- Creator
- Medwin, Thomas, 1788-1869
- Call number
- Pforz Ms
- Physical description
- 41 items
- Language
- English
- Preferred Citation
- Thomas Medwin manuscript material, 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 access to this collection.
Thomas Medwin, English writer and biographer. The Thomas Medwin manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings include a holograph essay, "Gossip on Smoking in General, Smokers in particular"; autograph emendations for a next edition in a copy of his Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley; and several poems, including translations from Catullus. The bulk of the correspondence is dated between 1821 and 1847. Correspondents include Richard Bentley, the printer and publisher; Ferdinand Freiligrath, the German poet and translator; Charles Ollier, the publisher, writer and editor; Jane Williams of the Shelley circle; and over a dozen others.
Administrative information
Custodial history
The establishing purchases of the Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle were made at the 1920 auction of the library of H. Buxton Forman, the Shelley bibliographer. Among Carl Pforzheimer's acquisitions from that sale were two special copies of the first edition of Medwin's Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley: one with the author's annotations for a later edition, and one with a tipped-in note from the author to an unidentified "Sir," possibly the publisher Thomas Cautley Newby. Sporadic acquisitions of Medwin autograph letters over the next few decades led to an accumulation of sixteen pieces in Medwin's hand by the time of Pforzheimer's death in 1957. Through the 1960's, '70's and early '80's, under the auspices of the Pforzheimer Foundation, another seventeen Medwin manuscripts were acquired, including his 1825 last will and testament; and his essay, "Gossip on Smoking." Since the Pforzheimer Collection's move to the New York Public Library in 1986, only two Medwin manuscripts have been accessioned.
Processing information
Compiled by Charles Cuykendall Carter, November 2017.
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