On April 8, 2021, Doc Chatters explored topics of gender, literature, fame, and the history of collecting through one 19th-century album of handwritten letters. 

A weekly series from NYPL's Center for Research in the Humanities, Doc Chat pairs a NYPL curator or specialist and a scholar to discuss evocative digitized items from the Library's collections and brainstorm innovative ways of teaching with them. In Episode Twenty-Three, NYPL’s Liz Denlinger and Professor Michelle Levy of Simon Fraser University analyzed an album of letters by "Eminent Women," collected by a London librarian and self-professed sufferer of “autographic mania,” William Upcott. The album was compiled during an era marked by rising opportunities for women writers in Britain, as their contributions to literature began to be recognized and their handwritten manuscripts collected, preserved, and valued. Denlinger and Levy discussed what made a woman “eminent” and how and why her handwritten documents came to be collected by Upcott.

Doc Chat Episode 23: Manuscripts of Eminent Women from The New York Public Library on Vimeo.

A transcript of this event is available here.

Below are some handy links to materials and sources suggested in the episode.

Episode Twenty-Three: Primary Sources 

Liz and Michelle examined the following album, which is housed in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle.

Original Letters Collected by William Upcott of the London Institution, Vol. XXX: Eminent Women, 1824.

The full album is not yet digitized and available on Digital Collections, but you may explore it via this PDF.

Episode Twenty-Three: Readings and Resources

“Autobiography of Collector.” Gentleman’s Magazine, 2nd series, May 1846, 474-76.

 Frederick Boyle, Memoirs of Thomas Dodd, William Upcott, and George Stubbs, R.A. (Marples and Co, 1879).

“The Father of a Fashion,” Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, May 1876, 89-104, 98.

Janet Ing Freeman, “Upcott, William (1779–1845), antiquary and autograph collector.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press. 2004). 

“The late William Upcott” [signed A.B., known to have been written by Dawson Turner], Gentleman’s Magazine, 2nd series, 473-74.

Michelle Levy, “Do Women Have a Book History?” Studies in Romanticism. New Directions in Romanticism and Gender: Essays in Honor of Anne K. Mellor 53:3 (Fall 2014): 297-317.

Michelle Levy,  Literary Manuscript Culture in Romantic Britain (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

Michelle Levy and Kandice Sharren, eds. The Women’s Print History Project 1750-1830.

“Mr Upcott’s Library of MSS. &c.,” Gentleman’s Magazine, 2nd series, Nov. 1846, 491-496.

A. N. L. Munby, The Cult of the Autograph Letter in England (Athlone Press, 1962).

S. J. Nicholl, “William Upcott,” Notes and Queries, 6-IV, Issue 86: (August 20, 1881), 158.

“Obituary of William Upcott,” Gentleman’s Magazine, 2nd series: November 1845, 540-41.

Additional Archival Collections 

William Upcott papers (MS Eng 1178). Houghton Library, Harvard University.  

Catalogue of the Autograph Room, Entirely Filled with the Collection of Mr. William Upcott ... Third Exhibition, Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution, June and July 1844. Copy annotated by W. G. Hiscock in British Library; Add. MS 78583.

Catalogue of the Collection of Manuscripts and Autograph Letters Formed by the Late William Upcott, Evans, June 1846. Annotated copy; British Library, Add. MS 78584 B.

Original Letters, Manuscripts and State Papers, collected by William Upcott. London: privately printed by Maurice, Clark, 1836. Copy with additions by Upcott;  British Library, Add. MS 78693.

Original Letters collected by William Upcott of the London Institution. Distinguished Women. British Library. Add MS 78686-78689.