Overview
Letters represent a very personal form of communication. What can the contents of letters tell us about how people in the past communicated?
Houghton Library has countless collections that contain personal correspondence.
Please see below for examples of personal correspondence from Houghton Library's collections.
Examples
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Letter : to Edward Holyoke, 1744 July 10
Concerns Colman's gift to Harvard of a copy of Thomas Coram's petition to the Princess of Wales concerning the establishment of the London Foundling Hospital -
William Stanley Braithwaite papers
Braithwaite was an African American poet, literary critic, and editor. He wrote reviews and criticism for the Boston Evening Transcript. From 1913 to 1929 he edited an annual Anthology of Magazine Verse. In the 1920's he was president of B. J. Brimmer Company, a Boston publishing firm. -
Amy Lowell correspondence
Lowell was an American poet of the Imagist school. The correspondence is with American and English poets as well as other literary figures. The collection includes letters to Amy Lowell from approximately 1400 different correspondents, copies of outgoing letters (chiefly after 1913), some miscellaneous correspondence between others, and letters of condolence received by Lowell's companion, Ada Russell, and members of Lowell's family upon her death.
