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- Creator
- Foster, Jeanne Robert, 1879-1970
- Call number
- MssCol 6253
- Physical description
- .21 linear feet
- Preferred Citation
- Jeanne Foster letters to Richard Londraville, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Manuscripts and Archives Division
- Access to materials
- Request an in-person research appointment.
The letters of Jeanne Foster to Richard Londraville, 1966-1970, were written while Londraville was preparing his Ph.D. dissertation on William Butler Yeats. Foster's letters give clear evidence of her fondness for him and her efforts to assist him in his research, both with manuscripts in her possession and her own recollections. The letters include discussions of William Butler Yeats, his father John Butler Yeats, arts patron John Quinn, and other prominent artists and writers. Foster writes repeatedly of W.B. Yeats's and her own interest in the occult and Eastern religious teachings, of her assistance to and visits from biographers William M. Murphy, Ben L. Reid, and Michael Holroyd, and provides details of her own life. Included with the letters are typescript poems written to Londraville and others, a few letters she received, and three enclosures dated 1912, 1920, and 1923 describing her second trip to Ireland, her time in Paris with Gwen John, and her visit to Assisi with John Quinn, respectively.
Biographical/historical information
Jeanne Robert Foster (1879-1970) was a poet, model, and journalist who acted as personal assistant to modern art patron and collector John Quinn. Foster associated with many of the leading modernist poets, artists, and writers of the early 20th century. She served as assistant editor of the American Review of Reviews and American editor of the Transatlantic Review. Her childhood and youth in the Adirondacks provided the background for her books Neighbors of Yesterday (1916), Adirondack Portraits (1986) and other collections of verse.
Richard Londraville is Professor Emeritus, SUNY at Potsdam. He has written several articles on W.B. Yeats and, with his wife Janis, a biography of Jeanne Foster, entitled Dear Yeats, Dear Pound, Dear Ford: Jeanne Robert Foster and her Circle. The Londravilles have also edited the correspondence of John Quinn with Maud Gonne and May Morris.
Administrative information
Source of acquisition
Gift of, Richard Londraville, 2005Using the collection
Location
Manuscripts and Archives DivisionStephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328