| Creator: | Gosse, Edmund, 1849-1928 |
| Creator: | Bennett, Arnold (Enoch Arnold), 1867-1931 |
| Creator: | Davies, W. H. (William Henry), 1871-1940 |
| Creator: | Davray, Henry-D., 1873- |
| Creator: | Heinemann, William, 1863-1920 |
| Creator: | Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946 |
| Title: | Davray mss. |
| Collection No.: | LMC 1259 |
| Dates: | 1896-1936 |
| Quantity: |
Quantity: 1 Box Quantity: 1 standard |
| Abstract: | The Davray mss., 1896-1936, consists primarily of letters from British author Sir Edmund William Gosse, 1849-1928, to the French writer and translator, Henry-Durand Davray, 1873-1944. |
| Location: | Lilly - Stacks |
| Language: | Materials are in English ; French . |
| Repository: | Lilly Library 1200 E. Seventh St. Bloomington, Indiana 47405-5500 Business Number: 812-855-2452 liblilly@indiana.edu URL: https://libraries.indiana.edu/lilly-library |
Sir Edmund William Gosse, 1849-1928, was British author, translator, literary historian, and critic who introduced the work of Henrik Ibsen and other continental European writers to English readers. Gosse started his career in 1867 as an assistant librarian at the British Museum. After making several trips to Sweden and Norway in 1872-74, he gained his first success by publishing reviews of Scandinavian literature. He developed friendships with many famous literary figures of his day, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, and he is in part responsible for the literary careers of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Siegfried Sassoon. Gosse's most famous work is his autobiography Father and Son (1907) which describes his relationship with his father Philip Henry Gosse. Among his other publications are several volumes of poetry and criticism and his work as the literary editor of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica .
Henry-Durand Davray, 1873-1944, was a French writer and translator. After studying English at the Sorbonne, he worked as a specialist in English literature for the Parisian newspaper Mercure de France . During World War I he worked as a war correspondent for the French government, and after the war he helped to found the Anglo-French Society to promote a good relationship between the two countries. He was also acquainted with many writers from the literary circles of both Paris and London. He translated the works of such authors as Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, W.B. Yeats, and H.G. Wells from English into French. Davray also translated Edmund Gosse's Father and Son into French, as well as some of his articles.
The Davray mss., 1896-1936, consists primarily of letters from British author Sir Edmund William Gosse, 1849-1928, to the French writer and translator, Henry-Durand Davray, 1873-1944. Also included are some letters from Gosse's wife and children.
Topics covered in the letters provide a panorama of Anglo/French literature as Gosse comments on the works of André Gide, Marcel Proust, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and many others. Several of the letters discuss questions of translation, while a handful of letters dated between 1914 and 1917 describe matters related to World War I.
In addition to the Gosse family, other correspondents present in the collection include Arnold Bennett, William Henry Davies, William Heinemann, and H. G. Wells. There is also a photocopy of a fragment of a speech Gosse gave in France in 1904, and two brief, undated manuscripts in Gosse's hand that are possibly summaries of lectures or addresses delivered by Gosse about the relationship and interaction of French and English literature.
This collection is arranged following original order.
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[Item], Davray mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Purchase: 1996