Series I: Correspondence, 1847-1891, undated, inclusive
Scope and Content
Through the correspondence in this series, White comes across as a respected scholar, social critic, and family man. There are letters from some of the most prominent individuals of the late nineteenth century discussing a variety of topics. Also included are letters White wrote to his family.
Subseries I.A: Correspondence Received by Richard Grant White, 1847-1891, undated, inclusive
Scope and Content
The bulk of the correspondence in this section was received in the 1870s and 1880s and reads as something of a Who's Who within the literary and academic communities. Included within this subseries are letters from: Thomas Bailey Aldrich (American poet, novelist, travel writer, and editor); Robert Browning (English poet and playwright); William Cullen Bryant (American poet, journalist and editor of the New York Evening Post); William George Clark (English Classical and Shakespearian scholar); Clarence Cook (American author and art critic); Howard Crosby (American scholar, preacher, and professor); George William Curtis (American writer and public speaker); Charles Dalrymple (Scottish politician); Charles Dickens (English author); Morgan Dix (American religious author); Alexander Dyce (Scottish editor and literary historian); Edward Everett (American politician and educator; Horace Howard Furness (American Shakespearean scholar); Richard Watson Gilder (American poet and editor); Edwin Lawrence Godkin (American journalist and newspaper editor); Percy Greg (English writer); James Orchard Halliwell (English Shakespearian scholar); Julian Hawthorne (American writer and journalist); Thomas Wentworth Higginson (American minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier); Oliver Wendell Holmes (American author); William Dean Howells (American author and literary critic); Daniel Huntington (American artist); Alfred H. Huth (English author and bibliophile); Richard Holt Hutton (English writer and theologian); Clement Mansfield (Shakespearian scholar); Ellen Kean (English actress); James Russell Lowell (American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat); John Morley (English statesman, writer, and newspaper editor); Charles Eliot Norton (American author and social critic); Frederick Law Olmsted (American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer); Frederick William Seward (Assistant Secretary of State during the Civil War); William H. Seward (President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State); Howard Staunton (English chess master); Edmund Clarence Stedman (American poet, critic, and essayist); Leslie Stephen (English author, critic, and mountaineer); Calvert Vaux (architect and landscape designer); and W. Aldis Wright (English writer and editor). The letters are organized first by the sender's last name and then chronologically.
Correspondence Received, A-D, 1859-1884, undated, inclusive
Correspondence Received, E-G, 1862-1891, undated, inclusive
Correspondence Received, H, 1850-1884, inclusive
Correspondence Received, I-N, 1847-1888, inclusive
Correspondence Received, O-Stedman, 1856-1884, undated, inclusive
Correspondence Received, Stephen-W, 1860-1887, undated, inclusive
Subseries I.B: Correspondence Sent by Richard Grant White, 1849-1884, undated, inclusive
Scope and Content
This subseries contains two different correspondence subjects. The first is White's family correspondence. Within those letters, White wrote to his wife, his sons, and his sister Augusta. The other correspondence is from White to publishing companies, newspaper editors, and other prominent individuals.