WHITMAN MSS.
The Whitman mss., 1846-1878, consist of correspondence of Mrs. Sarah Helen (Power) Whitman, 1803-1878, poet. Nearly all of the correspondence concerns Mrs. Whitman's friendship with Edgar Allan Poe.
An article about the material in this collection entitled "Edgar Poe and His Friends: A Sampler of Letters Written to Sarah Helen Whitman" was published by J. Albert Robbins in The Indiana University Bookman, number 4 (March, 1960), pp. 5-45. (Lilly Z1007 .I392 no. 4).
Among the correspondents are Mrs. Anne Charlotte (Lynch) Botta, William Hand Browne, Joseph Rhodes Buchanan, Franklin Burdge, Mrs. Maria (Poe) Clemm, George William Curtis, James Wood Davidson, Eugene Lemoine Didier, George Washington Eveleth, James Thomas Fields, William Fearing Gill, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Moore) Hewitt, Marie L. Houghten, John Henry Ingram, Thomas Carstairs Latto, Edgar M. Levan, W. J. McClellan, John Neal, John Owen, Sara Sigourney Rice, Sarah Elizabeth Robins, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith, Richard Henry Stoddard, John William Weidemeyer.
Two letters of the collection, Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman to John Neal, November 11, 1874, and Neal's reply, November 13, 1874, about L'Affaire "Musiad" have been published by David Randall in The J. K. Lilly Collection of Edgar A. Poe, Bloomington, Indiana, 1964, pages 49 and 50 (Lilly PS2628 .R187).
Collection size: 255 items
The letters of Maria Clemm to Sarah Helen Whitman of November 7, 1852, and April 14, 1859, are published in John Carl Miller, Building Poe Biography, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge and London, 1977, pages 40-42.