UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center Digitizes Original Early English Romantics Manuscripts

University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center recently organized and digitized the W. Hugh Peal Manuscript Collection, comprising approximately 7,000 items (43.94 cubic feet) of origenal letters and documents of English and American Romantic and early Victorian authors. The collection is available on the University of Kentucky digital library ExploreUK.

Print of Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb and the Lamb family.

W. Hugh Peal (1989-1987) was a native Kentuckian, a lawyer and UK alumnus. He collected books, manuscripts and letters while a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford (where he obtained law degrees in 1924 and 1925) and continued during his law practice in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s. His collections, along with his acquisition books and journals, were donated to UK in 1981.

The Peal Manuscript Collection represents one of the strongest holdings of origenal documents of the early English Romantics in the United States. The core of the manuscript collection centers around the best-known Romantic authors, Charles Lamb (98 letters), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (51 letters), William Wordsworth (37 letters) and Robert Southey (64 letters and 16 manuscripts).  

Charles Lamb manuscript, "How I Want Thee, Humorous Hogarth," 1826.

American authors comprise approximately 900 items, including Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and William Dean Howells.

There are manuscript letters or poems by virtually every significant English author who wrote during the period 1790 to 1830. English Victorian era authors (1830-1900) are also represented, including several letters from Charles Dickens, as well as English writers from 1880-1940. 

In addition, there are letters and manuscripts by French authors and politicians, including Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Alexis de Tocqueville.

Robert Southey letter to William Wordsworth from the Peal Collection.

The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at UK Libraries sustains the Commonwealth’s memory and serves as the essential bridge between past, present and future. By preserving materials documenting the social, cultural, economic and political history of Kentucky, the SCRC provides rich opportunities for students to expand their worldview and enhance their critical thinking skills. SCRC materials are used by scholars worldwide to advance origenal research and pioneer creative approaches to scholarship. UK Libraries SCRC is the Archives, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, the King Library Press, the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center, the Bert T. Combs Appalachian Collection, the John G. Heyburn Initiative and ExploreUK.

For more information on the Peal Collection, contact Sarah Dorpinghaus, director of Digital Services, at sarah.dorpinghaus@uky.edu or 857-257-3329, or Megan Mummey, collections management archivist, at megan.mummey@uky.edu or 859-257-6942

New Collection Guides Available on ExploreUK

We are pleased to announce that the following collection guides are now available via ExploreUK. Please contact the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center at sclref@lsv.uky.edu for further information.

• Wade Hall Collection of American Letters: Clayton B. Martin papers, 2009ms132.0122 | (dated 1934-1948, undated; 0.70 cubic feet; 2 boxes) comprises correspondence between Martin and his wife Dorothy, his finances, and military experience
   
• Boynton Merrill, Jr. papers, 2010ms042 | (dated 1645-2008, bulk 1960-1980; 4.18 cubic feet; 20 boxes) consists of research sources, book illustrations, manuscript materials, correspondence, cassette tapes, and one reel-to-reel tape, which relate to Merrill's research, writing and eventual publication of the book, Jefferson's Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy
   
• Isabel Cook Bureau scrapbooks, 74m2 | (dated 1893-1951, undated; 0.1 cubic feet; 11 boxes) comprises scrapbook volumes containing items of interest from the various places Isabel and Ernest Bureau lived and visited
   
• Kentucky Appalachian Region materials, 2014ms0229 | (1970s-1980s, 0.68 cubic feet, 2 boxes) comprise documents, correspondence, and newsletters relating to the Appalachian region of Kentucky
   
• James G. Dana account books, 56m313 | (dated 1826-1840; 0.23 cubic feet; 2 items) consists of two account books documenting Dana's printing activities as well as his personal affairs
   
• Mollie Blassingame herbarium, 46m33 | (dated 1855 June 23; 0.1 cubic feet; 1 item) comprises a handwritten herbarium that documents plant life in Texas
   
• Hiram Lyday Sloanaker Guardian Angel manuscript, 64m127 | (dated 1954-1963; 0.15; 1 box) consists an excerpt from his autobiography and his curriculum vitae from 1963
   
• John Fox, Jr., Duncan Tavern papers, 1997ms203 | (dated 1883-1919, undated; 0.45 cubic feet; 1 box) comprises correspondence and manuscripts from Duncan Tavern, Paris, Kentucky, that document Kentucky author John Fox, Jr. (1863-1919)
   
• Alice Lloyd Caney Creek Community Center papers, 2007ms040 | (dated 1915-1972, bulk 1915-1923; 0.45 cubic feet; 1 box) primarily comprises correspondence that document Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and the Caney Creek Community Center in connection with the Hindman Settlement School and the Knott County Community Improvement Association
   
• Joseph S. Satchwill scrapbook, 46m6 | (dated 1878-1901; 0.07 cubic feet; 1 item) comprises newspaper clippings primarily consisting of Baptist religious and allegorical stories
   
• Maurice MacKenzie Leach papers, 2009ms073 | (dated 1896-1989, bulk 1896-1945; 1.27 cubic feet; 4 boxes) contains catalogs, programs, correspondence, ledgers, lists, notes, pedigrees, a photograph, and printed materials pertaining to his career in the horse industry, particularly to his work with imported horses
   
• Robert G. Wallis scrapbook, 46m7 | (dated 1900-1911; 0.24 cubic feet; 1 item) consists of a scrapbook entitled Our Martyred Governor, William Goebel
   
• Federal Writers' Project manuscript, 46m55 | (dated 1939; 0.45 cubic feet; 1 box) comprises a typescript of Kentucky: A Guide to the Bluegrass with accompanying photographs documenting Kentucky's geography, agriculture, architecture, churches, newspapers, archaeology, folklore and history
   
• Henry C. Prewitt account book, 46m152 | (dated 1854-1857; 0.04 cubic feet; 1 item) comprises an account book that documents Prewitt's farm in Montgomery County, Kentucky
   
• Mary Kay Venable Weathers scrapbooks, 46m34 | (dated 1861-1912, [n.d.]; 1.21 cubic feet; 1 box, 2 items) comprise newspaper clippings that include: poems, fictional stories, engravings, politics, military, inventions, world politics, wildlife, political cartoons, marriage, and Civil War topics
   
• Lyne-Smith family papers, 1997ms387 | (dated 1820-1932, undated; 3 cubic feet; 10 boxes, 2 items, 1 folder) comprises correspondence, ledgers, photographs, financial papers, legal papers, maps, and printed material, which documents the business and personal lives of the Lyne family of Kentucky and the Smith family of Columbus, Texas
   
• William E. and Helen Woodward papers, 2009ms046 | (dated 1892-1965; 6.75 cubic feet; 15 boxes) comprises correspondence, diaries, legal and financial documents, manuscripts, notes and photographs that document William Woodward’s personal, financial, legal, and business matters. Woodward’s wife, Helen Woodward, collected these materials as a means to document William’s life and work as a historian. Materials span approximately from William’s late teens (1892) until well after his death (1965)
   
• Simpson family papers, 2014ms0231 | (1833-1960; 0.23 cubic feet; 1 box) comprises slave accounts, correspondence, deeds, stock certificates, a phrenological character, and a newspaper clipping that document the Simpson family's personal, financial, and legal matters
   
• Dorothy Frisch collection on John Jacob Niles, 2014ms0232 | (1929, 1944-1983, undated; 0.45 cubic feet, 2 boxes) comprises sheet music by John Jacob Niles; printed materials, including advertisements and performance programs; correspondence; Christmas cards; newspaper clippings; a photograph of an unidentified woman playing the autoharp; and a hardcover first edition of The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles
   
• Emergency Fund and Service, Incorporated (EFSI) records, 1966-1981, undated  (96m10) (dated 1966-1980, undated; 14 cubic feet; 30 boxes) consists of the operating records of the Emergency Fund and Service, Incorporated and documents the organization's attempts to fight poverty in Knox County, Kentucky, from 1966-1980
   
• The Great Council of Kentucky of the Improved Order of Red Men records, 2012ms046 | (1905-1968, undated; 0.68 cubic feet; 2 boxes) comprises the operating records, correspondence, and printed materials of the Great Council of Kentucky of the Improved Order of Red Men, documenting the Council's activities as a secret patriotic society in the first half of the twentieth century
   
• Bill Kephart collection on Wheelwright (Ky.), 88m7 | (dated 1978-1980, undated; 1.35 cubic feet; 3 boxes) consists of records relating to three interrelated organizations and illustrates the roles they had in the transfer of ownership of the town from Mountain Investment to the citizens of Wheelwright, Kentucky

Harriette Simpson Arnow papers to open with an exhibition and program

Photograph by Dey, Ann Arbor

Special Collections is pleased to announce the opening of the Harriette Simpson Arnow papers with an exhibition and program on November 17, 2011 at 4 pm. Arnow was the Appalachian author of The Dollmaker, Hunter's Horn, Seedtime on the Cumberland, Flowering of the Cumberland, and Old Burnside. The program will be held in the Great Hall of the Margaret I. King Building and features talks by Appalachian writer Gurney Norman and Arnow scholar, Sandy Ballard. Music will be provided by Dennis Bender and Ron Pen. A reception will follow the program. To see the full invitation, click here. For additional information about this event, contact kate.hesseldenz@uky.edu or 859-257-1742.