Scope and arrangement
The Thomas Medwin manuscript material is arranged in three series:
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.
The Thomas Medwin manuscript material is arranged in three series:
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.
Compiled by Charles Cuykendall Carter, November 2017.
In addition to manuscripts created by Thomas Medwin, the Pforzheimer Collection holds two manuscript letters addressed to him: one from Edward Ellerker Williams, Shelley's friend who died with him at sea; and one from Mary Shelley. Also held are a manuscript report (S'ANA 0573), in a clerical hand, recording financial transactions of Medwin's between 1825 and 1830; and a 20th century family tree (S'ANA 0570), drawn by the writer John Gawsworth, connecting himself to Medwin.
Printed Thomas Medwin materials held by the Pforzheimer Collection include numerous copies and editions of both his Converstaions of Lord Byron and his biography of Shelley; a copy of his scarce verse-drama, Ahasuerus, The Wanderer; several copies of his Angler in Wales; and copies of his volumes of verse, Nugæ and Odds and Ends. Secondary sources include Ernest J. Lovell's Captain Medwin (1962), and Horsham's Forgotten Son (1995), by Susan Cabell Djabri and Jeremy Knight.
The Pforzheimer Collection also holds a photograph portrait of Medwin, taken late in life, and endorsed on the verso in the hand of his granddaughter.