Collections and Critiques

Complete literary memorabilia concerning the late Army Lowell, poetess comprising one of the most important available sources of information about modern movements and prominent figures in literature and art, have been presented to the University Library by Miss Lowell's literary executrix, Mrs. Ida Russell, of Brookline, it was announced Saturday.

In the collection are Miss Lowell's notebooks, manuscripts, rare examples of her early work, and her vast correspondence with literary figures in America and England, including Robert Frost, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Richard Aldington, Vachel Lindsay, Barrett Wendell, Harriet Monroe, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Eleanora Duse, John Drinkwater, Conrad Alken, and Ezra Pound.

Items from the collection, which the staff is now cataloguing, will be shown in an exhibit of Miss Lowell's childhood work, to be placed on view today in the Poetry Room of the Widener Library, in commemoration of her birthday, February 9.

Miss Lowell's first poem, "Chicago," written at the age of nine, following a visit to that city in 1883, is shown in the original manuscript, pencilled in a small, childishly smudged journal.

A main feature of the exhibit, is a group of "magazines" produced by Miss Lowell and her childhood companions at the age of ten to fourteen. One of these, entitled the "Sevenels Gazette," was presented in handwriting, and contained a story, "The Bloody Hand," together with several advertisements, such as "Wanted! A Gentleman to clean knives, whose moustaches curl up not down, and who has no objection to being called Alphius."

A later magazine, "The Monthly Story Teller," also exhibited, was ambitiously mimeographed and survived two issues.

The display also contains rare book items from Miss Lowell's valuable library of first editions, bequeathed to Harvard at the time of her death in 1925. One of these is a little book "Dream Drops" containing several stories written by Miss Lowell at the age of thirteen, and published anonymously by a Boston firm in 1887.

Also shown is a complete set of first editions of the famous "Rollo" books, published a century or so ago. These were among the earliest childhood books read by Miss Lowell and her brothers Percival and Abbott Lawrence, and her sister Elizabeth, and have been in constant possession of the Lowell family since publication

Another book displayed is a first edition of Lamb's "Tales form Shakespeare," with engravings by William Blake.

Pushkin Exhibit

An exhibit of rare editions and the most important works of Alexander Pushkin, great Russian poet, has been arranged by the College Library in connection with the international commemoration during the next two weeks of the hundredth anniversary of this author's death.

In the same connection, Dr. Samuel H. Cross, associate professor of Slavic Languages, will give a free, public lecture tomorrow evening on Pushkin after One Hundred Years,' at 8 o'clock in Emerson Hall. The lecture is sponsored by the Morris Gray Poetry Fund.

The library exhibit, which will continue through February 20, consists largely of loans from Bayard L. Kilgour, Jr., '27, of Cincinnati, Ohio; S. J. Bolan, of New York City, dealer in Russian books; and Princess Xenia, of Russia, at present a resident of Syosset, Long Island, New York.

One of the most important volumes shown in a first edition of "Russian and Lyudmila," a poem in six cantos, the first work issued by Pushkin, which he published himself at St. Petersburg in 1820.

Pushkin's widely known work, the tragedy "Boris Godunov," which formed the basis of a famous opera by Moussorgsky, is represented by a first edition copy, published in St. Petersburg, 1831, and originally part of the library of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich. This book was written in 1826, but the Russian Czar refused Pushkin permission to publish it, urging that he rewrite the story in the form of an historical romance like those of Sir Walter Scott. Finally Pushkin prevailed upon the ruler to grant permission, saying that he needed money for his impending marriage.

Pushkin's verse novel "Evgeni Onegin," basis of an opera by Tchaikowsky, is shown in its rare original form a series of tiny volumes, published during 1825-32 in parts. The first complete edition of "Onegin," published within paper covers in 1833, is also exhibited.

One of the most valuable items in the exhibit is a copy of Pushkin's "Gabrielide," as printed in the first definitive edition at Peterburg in 1922. A blasphemous poem, this work was not printed during the poet's lifetime; but the verses fell into the hands of the police and Pushkin was forced to deny authorship in order to avoid severe punishment.