Harold Wave Whicker Collection of Literary Manuscripts

In 1938, Harold Wave Whicker (1895-1955) donated a collection of rare books and manuscripts to the University of Montana, where he had been a faculty member in the English Department. Over the course of his life Whicker filled many roles, including sportsman and conservationist, artist and author, and book collector.

This digitized collection, which includes both letters and manuscripts, emphasizes literature of the nineteenth century, with favorite authors including Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, Thomas Carlyle, and others. The items made available here are taken from a collection of primarily literary manuscripts assembled by Whicker. They are an eclectic group of materials, but they share this emphasis on nineteenth-century British and American literature. The correspondence includes a series of letters sent by Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, a letter from Charley Russell to Frank Bird Linderman, as well as letters by Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and others. Also included are a draft of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "Human Life's Mysteries", an early will of Jonathan Swift, and more.

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Envelope for a letter from Robert Browning to H. Cholmondeley Pennell

Robert Browning

Envelope for a letter from Robert Browning to H. Cholmondeley Pennell dated March 1860. The letter is not included.
Envelope for a letter from Robert Browning to Moncure Conway

Robert Browning

Envelope for a letter from Robert Browning to Moncure Conway dated 1869. The letter is not included.
Family Tree of the Emperor Trajan

Thomas Gray

Family tree of Trajan, drawn out by Gray.
Fragment of an Edgar Allen Poe manuscript

Edgar Allan Poe

Fragments of a draft of Poe's review of The Literati of New York by S. Anna Lewis (published in The United States Democratic Review, 23.122, August 1848, pp. 158-60).
French pension, signed by Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte

French pension, signed by Napoleon Bonaparte, Lazare Carnot, and Secretary of State Maret and dated 'quinze Vendemiaire de l'an neuf de la Republique francaise' (7 October 1800). The pension provides 100 francs annually to Marie Gaignard, widow of Rene Moulin, a volunteer in the 4th ... Read More
Letter from Alexander Carlyle to his brother, Thomas Carlyle

Alexander Carlyle

Letter from Alexander Carlyle to his brother, Thomas Carlyle, 30 January 1827. Compare Thomas' letter to Alexander of 3 February, reprinted in The Letters of Thomas Carlyle to His Brother Alexander, Ed. Edwin Marrs, Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968, no. 61. Available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/lt-18270203-TC-AC-01
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Letter from Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count d'Orsay to an unidentified recipient

Alfred Guillaume Gabriel

Letter from Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count d'Orsay to an unidentified individual, dated 'Marcredi'.
Letter from Charles Russell to Frank Linderman, 5 November 1917

Charles M. Russell

Letter from Charles Russell to Frank Linderman, dated 5 November 1917. The letter acknowledges an upcoming visit by Russell to Summers [possibly Somers, Montana] and discusses a missing knife.
Letter from Edward FitzGerald to an unidentified recipient

Edward FitzGerald

Letter from Edward FitzGerald to an unidentified recipient. The letter states that FitzGerald is without any servant and if the recipient ‘come[s] on Friday, I must lodge you almost entirely at The Bull.’
Letter from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to George H. Newhall

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Letter from Longfellow to Newhall recommending a particular Portuguese dictionary, 29 July 1847. Newhall had never met Longfellow, and in the letter that occasioned this one--Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1340.2 (4103)--he asks Longfellow's forgiveness of his presumption in asking for advice.
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Letter from Matthew Arnold to John Morley

Matthew Arnold

Letter from Matthew Arnold to John Morley, dated June 5th, 1878. In 2014 Philip Kelley, editor of The Brownings’ Correspondence, noted that the text concerns Arnold’s submission of “Irish Catholicism and British Liberalism,” which was published in the July 1878 issue of the Fortnightly.
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Letter from Robert Browning to H. Cholmondeley Pennell

Robert Browning

Letter from Robert Browning to H. Cholmondeley Pennell, 23 April 1866.
Letter from Robert Browning to Moncure Conway

Robert Browning

Letter from Robert Browning to Moncure Conway, 10 February 1865.
Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to James Augustus Hessey, [1822-25]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his publisher, James Augustus Hessey. The watermark of the paper reads 'Cowan 1822'. The letter discusses the publication of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, which was first published in 1825. The letter is ... Read More
Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 24 February 1837. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 9, p. 157. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/9/1/lt-18370224-TC-JWI-01
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Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 3[?] February 1837. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 9, pp. 137-8. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/9/1/lt-18370203-TC-JWI-01
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Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 24 January 1838. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 10, pp. 10-11. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/10/1/lt-18380124-TC-JWI-01
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Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 4 December 1837. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 12, pp. 393â€“94 (but see note in the Carlyle Letters Online edition). Transcription and more information available online ... Read More
Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 5 February 1838. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 10, pp. 22-3. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/10/1/lt-18380205-TC-JWI-01
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Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 3 November 1840. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 12, p. 312. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/12/1/lt-18401103-TC-JWI-01
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Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson

Thomas Carlyle

Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson, 7 January 1843. See The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1970-, v. 16, pp. 9-10. Transcription and more information available online at http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/1/lt-18430107-TC-JWI-01
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Lithograph of Thomas Carlyle by Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count d'Orsay

Alfred Guillaume Gabriel

Lithograph of Thomas Carlyle by D'Orsay, dated May 1839.
Manuscript of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Human Life's Mysteries"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Manuscript copy of Browning's 'Human Life's Mysteries', here entitled 'Life'. The poem was first published in the 1850 London edition of Browning's Poems.
Manuscript of Jonathan Swift's accounts

Jonathan Swift

In this document Swift lists amounts owed to him and expenses as of 8 September 1718.
Manuscript of Thomas de Quincey's essay 'Anecdotage'

Thomas De Quincey

Manuscript of de Quincey's essay 'Anecdotage', which was first published in The London Magazine, March 1823. Available online at: http://books.google.com/books?id=gtcYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA244
Manuscript poem by Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock

Manuscript poem by Thomas Love Peacock from a letter to Lord Broughton, November 13, 1862, on mourning paper. Cf. Nicholas A. Joukovsky, Letters of Thomas Love Peacock, v. 2, 1828-1866, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001. Letter no. 327.
Translation of lines of Euripides by Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock

Translation by Thomas Love Peacock of the last five lines of Euripides' Alcestis. An addendum by 'R. Garnett' (presumably Richard Garnett) notes this. A pencilled note on the verso suggests that the manuscript was given by Garnett to 'J. Everson' in 1902.