Louise Collier Willcox papers
Scope and Contents
The papers of author, editor, and anthologist, Louise Price Collier Willcox (1865-1929), 1877-1933, chiefly consist of literary correspondence, personal correspondence, and family correspondence, mostly with her immediate family.
The first series consists of correspondence from literary figures and publishers, including Henry M. Alden, James Lane Allen, Henry Charles Beeching, Hilaire Belloc, Arnold Bennett, A. C. Benson, Abbie Farwell Brown, Alice Brown, Trigant Burrow, H. Price Collier, William Crary Brownell, Edward Carpenter, John Vance Cheney, H. Price Collier, John Dewey, Edward Dowden, Edna Ferber, Kuno Francke, Richard Watson Gilder, Lawrence Gilman, Ferris Greenslet, Philip Hale, Lizzie Allen Harker, George Harvey, Robert Underwood Johnson, Gerald Stanley Lee, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Edward S. Martin, Alice Meynell, Eveleen Myers, Bliss Perry, E. C. Pickering, Margaret Prescott Montague, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Boris Sidis, Horace Traubel, and Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy.
This group consists chiefly of letters to her from other American authors regarding inclusion in her anthologies. With the letters are magazine photos and clippings. The literary figures correspondence also contains a letter from Willcox to Fannie Brewer, October 9, 1916, the manuscript of a poem “On the Pleached Orchard Path at World’s End Farm” by Willcox (1922), biographical material, and photographs of her.
Several authors and publishers have individual folders, including Sara Wiley Drummond, Ellen Glasgow, Georgiana Goddard King, Harper and Brothers, "Life," the Macmillan Company, the "North American Review", and "Outlook."
The second series contains personal correspondence, arranged alphabetically with correspondents listed by folder and with more frequent correspondents having individual folders, such as Margaret Macmillan Baxter (1852-1925), Fannie Reed Brewer, S.R. Carter, Annie Clephane (1836-?), Claudia Stuart Coles, Mary Ellis, Joseph A. Graham, [Sara B. Mackintosh], Louisa and Clara Paget, and Anna Cogswell Wood.
The third series consists of family correspondence with immediate family members, including her husband, James Westmore Willcox, Sr. her daughter Christine Willcox Capelli, her son, James Westmore Willcox, Jr., her parents, the Reverend Robert Laird Collier and Mary Price Collier, her brother, Hiram Price Collier, and her sister Mary Collier.
Also present in this series are miscellaneous papers, including financial papers; miscellany; manuscripts, including a few presumably by Willcox, news clippings and printed musical programs, and photographs of Louise Collier Willcox and family.
Dates
- Creation: 1877-1933
Creator
- Willcox, Louise Collier, 1865-1929 (Person)
- Willcox, James Westmore, 1866-1939 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Biographical / Historical
Louise Collier Willcox (1865-1929), an American author, editor, anthologist, critic and translator, was born in Chicago to the Reverend Robert Laird Collier and Mary Price Collier. She had private tutors in France, Germany, and England, and attended the Conservatory Leipzig, 1882-1883. She married James Westmore Willcox, a Norfolk, Virginia, attorney, on June 25, 1890 and lived most of her life in Norfolk, Virginia. They had two children, Christine Price Willcox Capelli (1893-1967) and James Westmore Willcox, Jr. (1894-1971). She remained a close friend of Ellen Glasgow.
Louise Collier Willcox worked as an editorial writer for "Harper’s Weekly" and was on the editorial staff of "North American Review" from 1906-1913, was a reader and advisor to Macmillan Company 1905-1909, and a reader and advisor to E.P. Dutton Company. Willcox authored "The Human Way," "A Manual of Spiritual Fortification" (1910), "The Road to Joy" (1911), "The House in Order" (1916), and "A Manual of Mystic Verse."
Extent
2.75 Cubic Feet ( 5 legal document boxes, 1 half-width legal document box, and one oversize folder)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
The collection is arranged in three series: Series I: Literary and Publishing Correspondence; the literary figures portion is chiefly composed of the material from the original accession (Box 1-2); Series II: Personal Correspondence (Box 2-3); and Series III: Family Correspondence and Miscellany (Boxes 3-6)
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Louise Collier Willcox papers, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, were purchased by the University of Virginia Library in two different accessions. The first accession of about forty letters and associated material (about 88 items) was purchased on March 10, 1998. The second accession (about one cubic foot) was purchased by the University of Virginia Library on October 19, 2011. Both have been interfiled together.
Subject
- Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson, 1873-1945 (Author, Person)
- Title
- Louise Collier Willcox papers
- Subtitle
- Clifton Waller Barrett Library
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Sharon Defibaugh
- Date
- 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Repository
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
P.O. Box 400110
University of Virginia
Charlottesville Virginia 22904-4110 United States