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Creator
Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878
Call number
Berg Coll MSS 186419
Physical description
.01 linear feet (1 folder)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Not yet: autograph manuscript signed, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
Repository
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Access to materials
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William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was an American poet, journalist, and editor. His autograph manuscript, dated circa the 1860s, contains a complete signed two-page autograph manuscript of his poem "Not Yet." The collection also includes two portrait engravings of Bryant and an engraving of Byrant's house in Roslyn, New York bound in a red levant morocco binding by Strikeman dating up to around 1900.

Biographical/historical information

William Cullen Bryant (born 1794 in Cummington, Massachusetts) was an American poet, journalist, and editor.

His first published poem was a satirical work about the Embargo Act of 1807 titled "The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times" (1808). Bryant attended Williams College, but dropped out and started studying law in 1810 due to financial difficulties. His father, Peter Bryant (1767-1820), found drafts of two poems and sent them to the North American Review in 1817. The poems, "Thanatopsis" and "The Fragment," were published by the Review in September 1817. Bryant republished "Thanatopsis" in a collection called Poems in 1821. The poem established Bryant as a poet with a uniquely American voice.

In 1825, Bryant left law, moved to New York City, and became an editor first at the New-York Review and later at the New York Evening Post. He was the editor of the New York Evening Post from 1829 to 1878.

Bryant supported the Free Soil Party, eventually becoming part of the new Republican Party. In 1860, Bryant introduced Abraham Lincoln before his Cooper Union Address and supported Lincoln's presidential candidacy. He wrote the Civil War poems "Not Yet" and "Our Country's Call" in defense of the Union and to inspire Union soldiers.

Bryant died in 1878 in New York City from injuries sustained by a fall.

Scope and arrangement

The "Not Yet" autograph manuscript dates from circa the 1860s and consists of two pages of an autograph manuscript signed by Bryant. The collection also holds two portrait engravings of Bryant and an engraving of Bryant's house in Roslyn, New York dating up to around 1900. The manuscript and engravings are bound in a red levant morocco binding by Stikeman. The front endpaper has a Susan Jaffe Tane book label.

The autograph manuscript of Cullen's poem "Not Yet", written circa the 1860s, has two differences from the version published in Louis Untermeyer's 1947 collection Poems of William Cullen Bryant. One of the portrait engravings depicts Bryant in his seventies. The other portrait, created for the New York Mirror by George Parker, renders Bryant in his thirties. The engraving of Bryant's home was created by John B. Forrest and William Rickarby Miller, and published by G. P. Putnam & Co. N. Y.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift of Susan Jaffe Tane, 2021.

Processing information

Processed by Amy Lau in 2024.

Separated material

This item was donated by Susan Jaffe Tane in 2021 alongside materials of or about Walt Whitman (Berg Coll MSS 186048), a letter by Edgar Allan Poe in an autograph album (Berg Coll MSS 186420), and three letters by James F. Cooper (Berg Coll MSS 186418), which have been described separately.

Using the collection

Location

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 320