Original Manuscripts,, 1622-1937

The Original Manuscripts section of the Symington Collection consists of original correspondence and other manuscripts focused on Algernon Charles Swinburne (English poet and literary critic), Theodore Watts-Dunton (Swinburne's lawyer and housemate) and Edmund Gosse (a literary critic and Swinburne's initial biographer). It also contains selected papers of George Borrow and others, including at least some material written by Alfred Austin, Patrick Branwell Brontë, Sidney Colvin, Walter de la Mare, Austin Dobson, John Drinkwater, André Gide, Alexander Balloch Grosart, Henry Harland, Henry Arthur Jones, Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, Walter Savage Landor, Paul Lemperly, Baron Lytton (Edward Bulwer Lytton), Harriet Martineau, Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Mary Ponsonby, Jane Porter, William M. Rossetti, John Ruskin, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, John Wilson, Thomas J. Wise and Samuel Pickworth Woodward. In addition, this section of the Symington Collection incorporates an extensive autograph collection that pertains to artists, noblemen, politicians, authors, editors, businessmen and scientists, especially persons who lived in the British Isles. Persons or businesses to whom some of the letters in the Original Manuscripts section were sent (in addition to Swinburne, Watts-Dunton and Gosse) include Arthur St. John Adcock, Robert Browning, Cadell & Davies, Martin Conway (Baron Conway of Allington), Thomas Crofton Croker, William Thomas Freemantle, Frederick James Furnivall, Jabez Hogg, Violet Hunt, Sidney Thomas Irwin, Lady Sidney Morgan, Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Caleb Burrell Rose, William M. Rossetti, George Augustus Sala, Clement K. Shorter, Robert Southey, Lord Sydney (Thomas Townshend), David Croal Thomson and Mr. Vulliamy.