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The life and work of Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) – a Chicago attorney turned poet
and
best known for the American literary landmark Spoon River
Anthology (1915) – is represented by manuscripts for his poetry and many other
works in several genres; a large holding of his correspondence; personal papers and
business
records; and extensive biographical materials on Masters and his family. Formerly
accessible
only in an onsite card catalog, these descriptions are now available in this online
finding
aid, enhanced with new descriptions of formerly restricted materials and several additional
acquisitions. |
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The Edgar Lee Masters Collection remains as originally organized into four series,
with two
segments now added: |
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• I. Works, 1884-1966 (bulk 1914-1942): boxes 1-35; |
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• II. Letters (Outgoing Correspondence), 1891-1947 (bulk 1914-1943): boxes 36-40; |
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• III. Recipients (Incoming Correspondence), 1882-1950 (bulk 1915-1950): boxes 41-56; |
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• IV. Miscellaneous, 1834-1985 (bulk 1883-1950): boxes 56-81; |
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• Formerly Restricted Materials, 1898-1955: boxes 82-99; |
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• Additional Acquisitions, 1918-1984: boxes 100-101. |
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Most of the collection is arranged and listed alphabetically by title or author within
these series. See the Indexes for Works, Letters, Recipients, and Miscellaneous in
this
finding aid to identify additional titles of works and correspondent names present
in this
collection. |
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Works: This series comprises 35 boxes of articles,
autobiography, biographies, nonfiction, novels, plays, poetry, and stories authored
by
Masters, with most dating from the publication of Spoon River
Anthology (1915) through The Sangamon (1942). Also
present in this series are a commonplace book and diary as well as several other diaries
and
notebooks. See also the separate group of Masters’s daybooks from 1906 to 1944 now
available
in the papers of his son, Hilary Masters. |
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Poems are dominant in the Works, with many handwritten and typed manuscripts of individual
poems that are almost always dated. There are also manuscripts for poems published
as
collections: Spoon River Anthology (1915), The New Spoon River (1923), Lichee
Nuts (1930), Invisible Landscapes (1935), More People (1939), and Illinois Poems
(1941). The long narrative poem Domesday Book (1920) is
represented by the untitled short story from which it was eventually derived (see
folder
1.7). Also notable are manuscripts and notes for Masters’s lengthy epic poem titled
The New World (1937), which tells the story of America from its
discovery by Columbus down to the days of President Woodrow Wilson. Manuscripts for
additional poems can be found in both the Formerly Restricted Materials and the Additional
Acquisitions segments. One of the acquisitions includes "The
Minotaur," self-printed by Masters at the Lewistown
News in 1884 at the age of sixteen (see folder 100.8). |
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Masters also wrote numerous plays and there are no less than 21 titled plays in this
collection, the best known of which are Andrew Jackson (1932)
and Moroni (1934), along with four dramatic poems: Godbey (1931), Jack Kelso (1927),
Lee (1924), and Richmond
(1932). |
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Additional manuscripts include Masters’s autobiography Across Spoon
River (1936); the novels Mitch Miller (1919), Skeeters Kirby (1920), and The Tide of
Time (1937); and biographies, including the controversial Lincoln the Man (1930) along with Vachel Lindsay
(1935), and Whitman (1937); and The
Sangamon (1942), a blend of local history, cultural study, and personal memoir
about this Illinois river. |
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Masters sometimes used pseudonyms for his works. His earliest poems were published
under
the names Dexter Wallace or Webster Ford to protect his identity as a practicing lawyer,
while his later appearances under the names Lute Puckett, Elmer Chubb, DD, LLD, Ph.D.,
or
Dr. Lucius Atherton seem to represent alter egos used for his more satirical or outré
writings. |
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Correspondence: The Letters and Recipients series represent
Masters’s outgoing correspondence file of typed carbon copies (5 boxes) and the files
he
kept of incoming correspondence (15.5 boxes). Masters’s correspondents include many
other
authors; lawyers, law firms, and judges; friends and family; as well as agents, editors,
publishers, and publications. |
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Among the notable and/or best-represented correspondents are Hugo L. Black, Amy Bonner,
Van
Wyck Brooks, William Jennings Bryan, Witter Bynner, Gertrude B. Claytor, Padraic Colum,
Clarence Darrow (law partner), Theodore Dreiser, Kimball Flaccus (Masters biographer),
Arthur Davison Ficke, Percy Grainger (composer), Constance Murray Greene, Thomas Hardy,
Elizabeth C. Lindsay, Vachel Lindsay, Ernest McGaffey (lawyer and poet), H. L. Menken,
Harriet Monroe, John Cowper Powys, William Marion Reedy (editor and publisher of Reedy’s Mirror), Edwin Parsons Reese, Carl Sandburg, Gerald DeWitt
Sanders (Masters bibliographer), Marjorie Allen Seiffert, Sara Teasdale, Eunice Tietjens,
John Hall Wheelock, and Lillian P. "Peggy" Wilson. Also
well-represented are agents Brandt & Brandt; publishers D. Appleton-Century Company,
Dodd, Mead and Company, Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., Horace Liveright & Co., Macmillan
& Co., G. P. Putnam’s Sons, and Charles Scribner’s Sons; and publication Poetry magazine. |
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Masters’s correspondence to and from his family in these series is extensive, especially
with his wives (Helen Jenkins Masters and Ellen Coyne Masters), his father (Hardin
Wallace
Masters, and his uncle (Wilbur Davis Masters). There is also correspondence with his
mother
(Emma Jerusha Dexter Masters), brother (Thomas Davis Masters), sons (Hardin Wallace
Masters
and Hilary Thomas Masters), and niece Edith L. Masters. |
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Masters frequently signed letters with the names of his author pseudonyms (Atherton,
Chubb,
and Puckett, sometimes even written on their own personal letterheads), but was also
known
to sign as Hod Putt, Harley Prowler, or Sir Bors. Masters also signed letters to family
members as "Gig" – short for his childhood nickname "Giggles" – and also addressed letters to his Uncle Will as
"Widdle" and to his wife Ellen as "Fayfe" or "Kid." |
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Miscellaneous: This series contains five boxes of Masters’s
personal papers and business records for his work as both an author and an attorney;
research materials collected by biographer Kendall Flaccus; plus works by others and
letters
written by or to persons other than Edgar Lee Masters. |
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Masters’s own records include an account book, agreements with publishers, business
correspondence, divorce correspondence, fan letters, financial papers, law notebooks,
lecture and tour correspondence, legal notes and papers, lists, notebooks and notes,
permissions correspondence, real estate papers, and school papers. Notes here sometimes
concern Masters’s works, such as an unpublished "father
novel,"
The New World, and The
Sangamon. |
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Notable in the Miscellaneous series are works and/or letters to third-parties created
by
Padraic Colum, August Derleth, Theodore Dreiser, poems by Vachel Lindsay, a memoir
by first
wife Helen Jenkins Masters, H. L. Menken, John Cowper Powys, William Marion Reedy,
and
Lillian P. Wilson, plus a large group of research materials gathered for a biography
by
Kimball Flaccus and bibliographical information compiled by Gerald DeWitt Sanders. |
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Other family members with papers in this series include second wife Ellen Coyne Masters,
father Hardin Wallace Masters, son Hilary Masters, grandfather Squire Davis Masters,
and
uncle Wilbur Davis Masters. Ellen Coyne Masters is the recipient of much of the
correspondence in this series, along with biographer Flaccus and bibliographer Sanders.
Several items relate to Lillian P. Wilson and there is also correspondence and/or
music for
Spoon River Anthology. |
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The final two series of this collection are Formerly Restricted Materials, 1898-1955:
boxes
82-99 and Additional Acquisitions, 1918-1984: boxes 100-101. |
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Formerly Restricted Materials: These materials were held by
Masters’s widow Ellen Coyne Masters until 1966 when the Ransom Center acquired them.
These
papers were restricted by Mrs. Masters in a document dated June 1, 1966 for segments
with
various periods of restriction: 20 years from June 1, 1966; or 25 years from June
1, 1966;
or specific dates (e.g., 1986); or after the deaths of named family members (occurred
1979,
1994, 1996, 1997), and then used only with permission from son Hilary Masters. Hilary
Masters agreed to open all remaining restricted papers in 2006. |
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The papers in these 18 boxes document sensitive events such as Masters’s divorce in
1923,
the deaths and estates of Masters’s parents in 1925 and 1926, and his extramarital
affairs.
The bulk encompasses Masters’s legal correspondence and documents, 1922-1950; Masters’s
letters to his second wife Ellen Coyne Masters (1922-1952) and to his uncle Wilbur
Davis
Masters (1923-1944); a chronological group of Masters’s outgoing carbon copy letters,
1919-1949 and related incoming correspondence from various people, 1919-1950; plus
manuscripts of poems and other works by Masters. The latter group of manuscripts arrived
labeled as "obscenia and foolishness" and is dominated by
the "Anita poems" written for Alice E. Davis and additional
writings under Masters’s various pseudonyms. Also among these Masters manuscripts
are an
autobiography from 1938 (after Across Spoon River was published
in 1936) and an index of his own poems, also compiled circa 1938. |
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This series also includes correspondence and other manuscripts from several women
who were
pursued by Masters, including Dorothy W. Butts ("Dodo"),
Alice E. Davis ("Anita"), Dorothy Dow, and Marjorie Allen
Seiffert ("Zueline"). The papers of Alice E. Davis are
largest and consist of letters, enclosures, manuscripts, and photographs documenting
her
relationship with Masters while each rented rooms at the Hotel Chelsea in New York
City from
1935 mainly through 1944. Among Alice’s manuscripts is the lengthy "Evenings with Edgar: A Journal," with entries from 1935 to 1938
that often contain quotes from poems and letters. This series also includes a copy
written
in Masters’s hand of a 1910 letter from sculptor Tennessee Mitchell, who later married
author Sherwood Anderson. |
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Additional family members documented by their correspondence to Masters include his
sister
(Madeline Ellen Masters Stone, later Grön), brother (Thomas Davis Masters), wives
(Helen
Jenkins Masters and Ellen Coyne Masters), son (Hardin Wallace Masters) daughters (Madeline
Lee Masters Gebhart and Marcia Lee Masters Jennings Schmid), and niece (Elizabeth
Masters
Stone, later Comtesse Louis de Danne). There are also letters to Masters from the
writer
August Derleth, who was once engaged to Masters’s daughter Marcia. Folders and envelopes
that originally accompanied the formerly restricted materials bear notes by Ellen
Masters
that are helpful in identifying family relationships (folder 99.5). |
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When names of works or correspondents in these formerly restricted materials matched
those
already given in the Indexes of Works, Letters, or Recipients for earlier series,
box.folder
locations for these related materials were added to the indexes. Separate lists of
titles of
works and correspondent names in some folders were compiled and are available upon
request,
although not all titles and names could be identified/verified. |
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Additional Acquisitions: Nine acquisitions for Edgar Lee Masters
materials were received between 1969 and 2024 occupy two boxes. These materials include
mostly additional Masters manuscripts, letters, photographs and printed materials,
along
with two books, a drawing by Hendrik Willem van Loon, and a poster. Most notable here
are
Masters’s letters to Army nurse Florence E. Dugan, 1919-1920; a manuscript by his
father
(Hardin Wallace Masters) entitled "At eighty, a chance
shot," circa 1925; and Spoon River manuscripts,
clippings, and correspondence for various productions or proposals, mostly after Masters’
death in 1950. |
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Content Warning: This collection contains material that users may consider offensive or harmful, such as terminology, language, and negative stereotypes that may be considered racist, sexist, outdated, or exclusionary. This language was used by the people and organizations that created the material and reflects the period in which they were created. It should not be interpreted to mean that Center staff endorse or approve of the representations or stereotypes implied within. For more, please refer to the Center’s Statement on
Language in Ransom Center Descriptive Records. |
