Robert Gathorne-Hardy papers
Content Description
The collection includes a number of Gathorne-Hardy notebooks, manuscripts, and correspondence.
The notebooks in Series I span from his early writing career to late 1968 and include notes, research, and drafts of his works. Of interest is Gathorne-Hardy's peculiar habit to reverse the notebooks and write from back to front. His notebooks exhibit his disjointed thought process, often beginning an entry mid-sentence.
Writings in Series II include typescripts for Amalfi and Three Acres and a Mill., a corrected galley proof, and miscellaneous notes—possibly originally interleaved in the notebooks by Gathorne-Hardy.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1920-1968
Creator
- Gathorne-Hardy, Robert, 1902-1973 (Person)
Language of Materials
Bulk of materials in English with some entries in Italian.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research under the terms of the NIU Rare Books and Special Collections.
Conditions Governing Use
Property Rights are transferred to the University Libraries per the signed Deed of Gift Document. Literary Rights are retained by the content creator. Any copyrights so stated in the materials remain in force.
Biographical / Historical
The Honourable Robert Gathorne-Hardy, FLS (1902-1973), known as "Bob" Gathorne-Hardy, was a British poet, novelist, botanist and horticulturalist.
In the early 1920s he co-founded a private press with his partner Kyrle Leng, with whom he shared a home in Stanford Dingley. The pair named the press after their shared home, The Mill House Press. After Leng's death in 1958, Gathorne-Hardy remained at the Mill House untill his own passing in 1974.
Gathorne-Hardy's love of gardening and travel coalesced into a prosperous writing career. Additionally, he frequently wrote prose and short fiction, published biographies of Logan Pearsall Smith and Lady Ottoline Morrell, and researched the works of Jeremy Taylor.
Extent
7.37 Linear Feet : (6 document boxes; 2 item boxes; 1 oversize box)
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from London Booksellers Bertram Rota LDT in 1974.
- Status
- Completed
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Northern Illinois University Repository
Founders Memorial Library
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb IL 60115 US
815-753-9392
rhcua@niu.edu
