Scope and Contents
The Matthew Arnold Collection is a mixed-provenance collection of material by and related to Matthew Arnold, including family, personal and professional correspondence; diaries by Mary Penrose Arnold; letters from Frances Lucy Arnold to Arthur Galton; and a small quanitity of personal papers and manuscript items.
Series I, Matthew Arnold Letters and Other Papers, contains letters by Matthew Arnold to family members, friends and professional colleagues. Major recipients include his close friend, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough; James Thomas Knowles, the editor first of the Contemporary Review and then of The Nineteenth Century; and George Smith, the founder of Cornhill Magazine. An 1834 letter to Martha Buckland is written partially in verse. The series also contains an autograph manuscript of George Sand and notes and documents relating to Arnold's career as an Inspector of Schools.
Series II, Mary Penrose Arnold Diaries, contains the personal diaries of Arnold's mother for the years 1825 to 1842, while Series III, Frances Lucy Arnold Correspondence, consists entirely of letters from Frances Arnold to the Reverend Arthur Galton.
Series IV, the Fred Whitridge Collection of Arnold Family Papers, consists almost entirely of correspondence inherited or gathered by Frederick Whitridge, a grandson of Matthew Arnold. Contents include several folders of letters from Arnold to his daughter Lucy Arnold Whitridge, as well as letters to his mother and his sister Fan; letters to Arnold from a variety of correspondents, including Benjamin Jowett, Sir Henry Irving, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Henry, Cardinal Newman; and a notebook on theater and notes in Arnold's hand.
Dates
- 1825 - 1939
- Majority of material found within 1850 - 1888
Creator
Language of Materials
In English and French.
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
The Matthew Arnold Collection is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired by gift and purchase from various sources between 1928 and 2005, as noted on individual folders or on the catalog cards included with the collection.
Arrangement
Organized into four series: I. Matthew Arnold Letters and Other Papers, 1845-1888. II. Mary Penrose Arnold Diaries, 1825-1842. III. Frances Lucy Arnold Correspondence, 1885-1920. IV. Fred Whitridge Collection of Arnold Family Papers, 1849-1939.
Extent
2.29 Linear Feet (6 boxes)
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The Matthew Arnold Collection is a mixed-provenance collection of material by and related to Matthew Arnold, including family, personal and professional correspondence; diaries by Mary Penrose Arnold; letters from Frances Lucy Arnold to Arthur Galton; and a small quanitity of personal papers and manuscript items. Correspondents include Arthur Hugh Clough, James Thomas Knowles and George Smith.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), son of British educator Thomas Arnold, was a poet and critic who began his education at Rugby School, where his father was headmaster. In 1841, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he began his life-long friendship with the poet Arthur Hugh Clough, graduating in 1844. In 1851, through the patronage of Lord Lansdowne, he was appointed one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, a position he held until his retirement in 1883. He married Frances Lucy Wightman, Lord Lansdowne's daughter, in the same year. The Arnolds had six children, only three of whom survived to adulthood.
Much of Arnold's poetry was written by the time Arnold turned thirty. His major collections include The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1849); Empedocles on Etna and other Poems (1852); Poems by Matthew Arnold (1853, 1854, 1857); and New Poems (1867). He is perhaps best known today for the elegaic Dover Beach and Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. Arnold's literary and cultural criticism included the highly influential Culture and Anarchy (1869) and other collections of critical essays, many of which first appeared in periodicals such as Cornhill Magazine and The Athenaeum. In addtion, he published two works on French and Continental schools.
Arnold retired from the civil service in 1883 on a pension secured for him by William Gladstone. He made two extensive lecture tours of the United States, in 1883 and 1886. Matthew Arnold died of a sudden heart attack in Liverpool on April 15, 1888, and was buried three days later beside his children at Laleham.
Processing Information
The Matthew Arnold Collection is comprised of material formerly classed as MS Vault Shelves Arnold, Uncat MS Vault Shelves Arnold, Uncat MSS 358, and Uncat MSS 834.
This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing, in 2012.
The finding aid for this collection is largely compiled from individual catalog cards for each acquisition that were created at or around the time of receipt by the library. Information from the catalog cards was repurposed in the finding aid in accordance with current archival descriptive standards. Some catalog cards, filed with the collection, include more detailed descriptions of individual items and/or provenance notes. Descriptions for items not represented by catalog cards were derived from accession records, folder labels, or other available descriptive material. Some items are accompanied by transcripts or other explanatory material; this is not generally noted in the finding aid.
- Arnold family
- Arnold, Frances Lucy
- Arnold, Mary Penrose, 1791-1873
- Arnold, Matthew, 1822-1888
- Arnold, Thomas, 1795-1842
- Authors and publishers -- Great Britain
- Authors, English -- 19th century -- Archives
- Clough, Arthur Hugh, 1819-1861
- Diaries -- Great Britain -- 19th century
- English literature -- 19th century
- English poetry -- 19th century
- Galton, Arthur, 1852-1921
- Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
- Knowles, James, Sir, 1831-1908
- Smith, George, 1824-1901
- Title
- Guide to the Matthew Arnold Collection
- Author
- by Beinecke Staff
- Date
- July 2012
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.