Archive of Historian, Author and Professor Goldwin Smith
1865-1909. Smith, Goldwin
Archive of Historian, Author and Professor Goldwin Smith, 1865-1909
About an inch of manuscript material and letters. Very good, see description for details.
Goldwin Smith was born in Berkshire, England in 1823. He held the Regius professorship of Modern History at Oxford from 1858 to 1866 and is noted for his historical writings, “The United Kingdom: a Political History” (1899) and “The United States: an Outline of Political History” (1893), as well as a biographical study of Shakespeare in 1899 that was republished as part of Volume 1 of “The Personal Shakespeare” in 1904. In 1864, Andrew Dickson White, president of Cornell University, invited Smith to take up a teaching post at the newly founded institution, and he held the professorship of English and Constitutional History in Cornell’s Department of History from 1868 to 1872. Smith was something of an academic celebrity, bringing notoriety (and his personal library from England) to the university, and his lectures were sometimes printed in New York newspapers.
In Smith’s later years in Toronto he edited the “Canadian Monthly” and founded the “Week” and the “Bystander.” He wrote prolifically, following American and English politics and expressing his views on Anglo-Saxonism, Imperialism, antisemitism and education. Smith is credited with the quote “Above all nations is humanity," an inscription that was engraved in a stone bench that sits in front of Cornell’s Goldwin Smith Hall, named in his honor. He died in 1910.
This collection contains an autograph manuscript on 41 loose 6.5” x 4” sheets. It is lacking p. 2, else very good with some light scattered spotting, and signed by Smith on the last page. Titled “Securities (To the Editor of the Examiner & Times)”, it comes with the original transmittal envelope to R.D. Webb, Esq. in Dublin, postmarked April 3, 1867, Manchester. The envelope was docketed by Webb, with “Autograph Essay by Goldwin Smith” on the front cover and “With A. Ireland’s kind regards & best wishes” inside the front flap. The envelope is tipped onto a folded sheet of paper, now separated along the fold.
Smith would have written this manuscript while serving at Oxford, shortly before accepting his position at the newly formed Cornell University in 1868. R.D. Webb was known as the “Dublin Quaker printer.” A staunch abolitionist, he printed the Dublin edition of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Douglass had stayed at Webb’s house when he visited Dublin. Alexander Ireland (1810-1894) was the printer and publisher of the Manchester “Guardian” and author of several books including “Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Genius, and Writings.” He was said to have been a great friend of Emerson’s.
There are also ten letters, ranging in size from 7” x 4 ¼” to 8½” x 11” and in date from 1865 to 1909. All have been flattened, lack envelopes and are stored in individual mylar sleeves. Very good or better: creased at old folds, with a few adhesive remnants and spots of thumb-soiling. One with a tiny hole not affecting any text. Descriptions of the letters are as follows:
- Autograph letter, signed by Smith, to accompany the autographs of Dr. Ryland and Dr. Mayhan, author of “The History of the Races,” January 4, 1865
- Dictated letter, signed by Smith, to Mr. Keel, noting that Smith feels like “an outsider in writing in an American Review on a pending election,” September 2, 1896
- Autograph letter, signed by Smith, likely to Hamilton Holt, declining an invitation of “The Independent” and giving his private opinion on a military and political dispute with Great Britain, January 15, 1897. Holt (1872-1951) served as editor and publisher of “The Independent,” the liberal weekly magazine out of New York, from 1897 to 1921.
- First page only of an autograph letter from Smith to Mr. Munro regarding Smith’s article “The Canadian Question by An Englishman Resident in Canada,” March 3, 1898
- Dictated letter, signed by Smith, to Hamilton Holt at “The Independent” concerning his book, July 10, 1900
- Dictated letter, signed by Smith, to Holt: “I hope before long some other subject will occur upon which I may once more have the pleasure of appearing in the columns of The Independent,” October 22, 1900
- Autograph letter, signed by Smith, to R.G. Thompson, recommending the work of C.A. Fyffe, author of “A History of Modern Europe,” December 14, 1900. Docketed by Thompson: “Wrote to C.A. Fyffe Dec. 22. Article wanted Feb 15. 8000 words”
- Autograph letter, signed by Smith, to L.O. Lunt, thanking him and Mr. Burgess for the “entertainment enjoyed by us at the Grand Theatre last evening. In this world of toil and care he is not the least of benefactors who gives us the refreshment of a hearty laugh.”
- Dictated letter, signed by Smith, to Joseph B. Silber correcting a mistake “in my Lincoln article,” February 15, 1909
- Dictated letter, signed by Smith to Holt, that “I fully appreciate the privilege of having the Independent’s papers open to me but for the present my limited working powers are engrossed in other things.” May 28th, no year.
A great collection of personal notes and a manuscript by a noted writer, historian and professor. The Goldwin Smith papers are housed at Cornell. Item #1442
Price: $350.00