Miles Franklin, in her own words

Australian author Miles Franklin kept diaries!

Who knew?! Not me, not until interest in her writing career resurfaced via a new book entitled MILES FRANKLIN UNDERCOVER by Kerrie Davies. This book tells the story Franklin “outlined” in a diary kept during her time as a servant, preparing for a tell-all-exposé that was never published.

The deeper I delved, the more items that turned up – including, at the State Library of New South Wales, Miles Franklin’s DIARIES from the years 1909 to 1954. Thus this blog post.

from the library catalogue:

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin – known as Stella to her family and friends, and as Miles to her readers – was born on 14 October 1879. The young Miles published her best-known and much-loved work My Brilliant Career in 1901.

One of the greatest insights into the life of Miles Franklin is the set of pocket diaries that she kept from 1909 until her death in 1954. This project seeks to open up this rich account of a woman committed to promoting Australian literature. These diary pages reveal the everyday, the moments of joy and the many disappointments of one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

I first found Miles Franklin via the 1979 film My Brilliant Career, featuring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. I have a feeling it was among the first “foreign” films at the local movie house, back in the day when they showed such films here (the house has recently closed), that I saw. “Film,” in its broad sense, opened an entirely-new world – “abroad” – for me. It’s still a wish of mine, someday to visit Australia and New Zealand. My Brilliant Career is what one podcaster / blogger calls “Frock Flicks” – a term I quite like! You will enjoy the blogger’s look at the film’s costumes.

Watch a film trailer for My Brilliant Career.

The Sydney Morning Herald, March 2018, breaks the story of how Miles Franklin’s final diary was “found” – “spotted in an old suitcase”!

The State Library of New South Wales concisely outlines the life and career of Miles Franklin in an illustrated article by Dr. Rachel Franks.

Some additional links:

19th Century Diarist, Peter Orlando Hutchinson

A  recent *fabulous find* is the online offerings of East Devon National Landscape‘s website: they have digitized the diaries of Peter Orlando Hutchinson, as well as his delightful drawings, and his book History of Sidmouth – which a fellow day-tripper was holding, and mentioned it was an enjoyable read, when he unknowingly met the author (Hutchinson never told him “that’s my book!”).

Hutchinson’s biography places him in Winchester, Hampshire, his 1810 birthplace. (Note: the same EDNL page has his birth year 1819.)

For those wanting to see the digitized page images of the Journals:

For those wanting to study Hutchinson’s delightful drawings and watercolours of nature:

  • scans from the six Hutchinson sketchbooks
  • images from the diaries are within the scans of the journals [not included in the transcript]; also, newspaper cuttings laid in the journals

I have just started to read the transcript. SUCH SORROW to read that he destroyed his early journals, for those that exist are delightful and insightful. Hutchinson is observant, a great walker, and great communicator. His descriptions of the landscapes, and his escapades, make me wish to seek out Butler’s publications.

Diaries Eileen Younghusband, 1917-1930

As Readers will know, it is a favorite thing to find ONLINE diaries of women.

The University of Warwick (UK) has made the diaries of Dame Eileen Younghusband (1902-1981) available, fully transcribed, for the years 1917-1930. Additional material include PHOTO ALBUMS, 1913-1918, an early 1920s Notebook of Books Read, and an Autograph Album from 1925.

Born in London, Younghusband spent her youth in India as well as in England. She began keeping a diary at the age of 15, in 1917, in the midst (of course) of World War I. “She continued to write the diaries, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, until 1930.”

“In 1924, … Eileen Younghusband was recruited by Edith Ramsay to work for the London County Council Care Committee as a children’s health visitor in Whitechapel.”

“Younghusband began to, in the words of her biographer Kathleen Jones, “feel the need for formal education … some kind of framework for her polarised experience – some concept of ‘society’ which went beyond the limited worlds of the West End and the East End, and included both.” [She] began the Social Science course at the London School of Economics in 1926, whilst recovering from the effects of polio.”

The website describes the diaries as:

The detailed diaries in Eileen Younghusband’s archive cover the period before her great professional success, when she was developing her ideas and deciding what her focus in life would be. Generally speaking, the diaries are not accounts of the author’s innermost thoughts but are descriptions of events, mixed in with some observations and opinions, often told with a self-deprecating wit

“During the 1970s, Eileen Younghusband recorded an extensive series of interviews with her colleague Kathleen Jones which formed the basis for a biography published after Younghusband’s death in 1981. An interview with Alan Cohen, part of a project to record the experiences of social work pioneers, is available elsewhere on the Modern Records Centre website (both as an audio recording and transcript). These later autobiographical recollections can help to provide context to some of the material in the diaries.”

For further readings:

  • Kathleen Jones, ‘Eileen Younghusband: A biography’ (Occasional Papers on Social Administration 76, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, 1984)
  • several works turn up on Amazon, including Not An Ordinary Life (2020); One Woman’s War (2012), and Eileen’s War (2016)

Emily Dickinson Letter at Auction

Heritage Auctions is featuring in its 27 June 2024 auction an Emily Dickinson letter that has surfaced!

Written in Emily’s distinctive handwriting, described as her “fossil-bird tracks,” the letter is little more than a note. She sure used a LOT of paper’s space for very few sentences, probably giving a clue as to her eyesight problems.

Written in April 1880, she sent it to Mary Adelaide Hills (“Mrs. Henry Hills”).

It’s very affecting to see it signed

“Emily,

and

Vinnie.”

Currently the bid stands at $10,000 ($12,000 with Buyer’s Premium added in). Expected to go in $500 increments, one auctioneer site estimates the letter will sell for between $20,000 and $30,000.

Online, the letter is listed as Johnson No. 639. His comment was “MANUSCRIPT: missing.”

The auction site lists:

“Provenance: The letter was first published in 1894, in the two-volume The Letters of Emily Dickinson edited by Mabel Loomis Todd. After the death of Adelaide Hills in 1910, the letter passed into the hands of her children, specifically her daughter Susan Clapp Hills Skillings. According to Dickinson scholar Thomas H. Johnson, a transcript of the text of this letter, and others in Mrs. Skillings’ possession, was made by George Frisbie Whicher. In Johnson’s The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), this letter, listed as “letter 614,” [online it is 639] is given a possible date of 1879, and the original is listed as missing. The original letter remained with Mrs. Hills’ heirs, until it was obtained by Seven Gables Bookshop from Mr. Hills Skillings. Purchased from Seven Gables Bookshop, New York.”

Another letter gives the SAME provenance; it is a letter at Virginia Commonwealth University. They obtained their letter in June 1972 from the Seven Gables Bookshop. A date in the 1970s makes so much more sense. So WHERE has this little letter been for the last 52 years?

The new publication (2024) of The Letters of Emily Dickinson, eds Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell lists the letter as No. 860 and seen in a photocopy. How much will the original letter sell for? Where will the original letter end up going (private or more public collection)??

Just shows, from an individual to a bookshop, from bookshop to auction, there ARE still stories of ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT DISCOVERIES taking place. Jane Austen scholars, be on alert!

Watch LIVE, 27 June, 2024; 11 AM _CENTRAL_ US Time (Dallas, TX). Estimated: 44 lots sold per hour. Emily’s lot is 45047 [opening lot is 45001]

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UPDATE: Auction Results

I watched this auction “live” (online). Up for sale was the William A. Strutz Library, a collector from North Dakota whose SIXTY-YEARS of collecting was done in days of writing notes, composing letters, making phone calls. The lots I watched sell for over a couple of hours were ASTOUNDING! So many SIGNED editions. Early on was a Boswell-signed “Life of Johnson” (originally presented to Dr. Charles Burney). There was a COMPLETE set of “The Spectator”. Bidders online, through the Auction house’s own website, HeritageLive!; on the phone, in the room. There were online “advance” bids with “maximums”. So the auctioneer was BUSY.

Alas, one of the books WITHOUT an author signature was a 3-volume  set of JANE AUSTEN’s “EMMA”! Opening bid, after online bids were totted up: $60,000. In “boards” (original publisher’s output) with spine labels; uncut; quarter morocco “drop back” folding case. Ooooh…

Bidding on “Emma” went up by $5000.

$65,000… $70,000… $75,000… $80,000… $85,000…

A “cut” bid – whereby the five-thousand increment was boosted only (ahem) by $2500 – up to $87,500.

Then the bid that stuck through to the end: $90,000.

The auction house imposes a 25% buyer’s premium. On $90,000 that is an additional $22,500 for a total purchase price of $112,500 for a first edition “EMMA” that will (in all probability) never actually be READ.

The one text that garnered more than Austen: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. [with buyer’s premium, the book sold for over $400,000 – yes, I did NOT type too many zeroes.]

The little EMILY DICKINSON note was very “modest” in comparison to some of the books –  and it sold for less than a first edition of the first Dickinson “POEMS” (the next lot), $17,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium).

“I can sell it, and I will sell it” said the young woman at the lectern. No “bang” from a gavel, just a reassuring hand waving in the air.

I watched for a couple of hours. Already the total (and this was day one of two) was over $1.5 million. Astounding!

 

Emily Dickinson Archive

One writer, in reference to EMILY DICKINSON specifically, expressed this wonderful thought:

“penmanship is a form of self-presentation”

This observation is so true. Anyone who works with original documents will testify to the merits of this sentiment.

The writer, Prof. Elisa New, recognizes that “We no longer live in a world with much handwriting..” She stresses that, in looking at the originals, “Dickinson’s poems work as visual, as well as verbal, art.” To this end, the site she highly recommends is the Emily Dickinson Archive: An Open-Access Website for the Manuscripts of Emily Dickinson.

By eschewing the printed word, we readers “can read each poem in her distinctive handwriting, with distinctive punctuation.” No doubt, reading the manuscripts provides a workout! But a satisfactory struggle that brings the reader that much closer to the composer.

“Will you let me add a few Jasmin in a few Days?” Emily Dickinson, poem to Sarah Tuckerman [Amherst Manuscript #32; possibly, handwriting of 1880]


When you BROWSE IMAGES by COLLECTION, you will realize just how VAST this online images project is. Amherst College’s collection alone contains over 1660 images. They have been collated from a “lucky” set of thirteen archives, including the Library of Congress (Washington DC) and the Morgan Library & Museum (New York City). When you click on the cross (+) beside each listed site you will see the various manuscripts and be able to choose to see specific documents.

If to know a person is to experience what their hand put upon paper, then I am lucky with my Smith & Gosling research; I have a collection of letters as well as images. I can TOUCH what they have touched, written, read, drawn, and preserved.

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I first began to read ABOUT Emily Dickinson when, in a hospital waiting room, I read a review of the then-just-published biography by Julie Dobrow, After Emily (2018). Dobrow’s research into the life of Mabel Loomis Todd fascinated me, even as it made me intensely dislike the main person (along with Dickinson’s philandering brother, Austin Dickinson). The book also gave me a “second sister” to wish for more information about: sister-in-law Sue Dickinson, in addition to Lavinia Dickinson. It was a great “grief” not to be able to visit Austin and Sue’s home, Evergreens, when I visited the Dickinson Homestead in December of 2022. Both properties, which sit side-by-side on a lovely plot of land in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts, are now open, much-needed renovations having taken place during the covid shut-down.

I now have a good “collection” of Dickinson books, but not the poetry. Dickinson’s LETTERS, my initial interest, needed so much extratextual knowledge, that I had to leave off reading those (in the one-volume book condensed from the three-volume set by Johnson). I remember when this book arrived in the mail! Buttery-soft-fabric-encased hardcover, complete with dust jacket. It was exquisite. “They don’t make them like they used to do!”

Most of my collection are biographical – for that is what intrigues me the most. Like Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson wrote and lived in small village/town. Unlike Jane Austen, Dickinson published very little. Austen, on the other hand, worked hard to get her novels into print. Dickinson could rely on some amount of security, in the family home, with family funds. Austen did not always have the extreme generosity of family, although the female nucleus of her immediate circle did provide the security required for any writer to thrive.

The Dickinsons had their ups and downs, but, as the two house museums attest, they did have a place to call their own. Fans and artists can actually “rent” Emily’s bedroom for some useful “me time.” These are called “Studio Sessions.” I recall reading about this program in one of the (email) newsletters. Wouldn’t Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton gain significant funding with such a scheme!

Enjoy the manuscripts, and I will append in the COMMENTS section a list of my Dickinson books for anyone interested.

History of the World (seen thru J.J. Heath-Caldwell’s Library)

A new book – which is also available as a *free* PDF:

History of the World
(seen through my family library)
J.J. Heath-Caldwell

A recent (January 2024) comment to this blog announced that a family history website I had blogged about previously in 2023 now had a book (limited print-run of 100 copies) associated with it. Thanks, J.J. Heath-Caldwell, for sharing the information! (and for finding my blog post….)

J.J. had long wished to write – but (I can imagine!) where does one start and how to narrow the focus when there is just SO MUCH information, a cottage full of items, so many historical people and great historical detail?

J.J. tells us:

“After further thought, I decided to write a combination of the following:

  1. Some history of Linley Wood, the Caldwell family home.
  2. Information about the books in the library and the subjects covered within.
  3. Short biographies of my ancestors and stories about some of their friends.
  4. A light overview of some of the big events that were happening at the time.

Adding this altogether gives a history of the world, as seen through the books in my family library.  This is really a window into the past and a history of civilization.”

The index of chapters is as follows:

  1. The Fun of Hunting for Historical Information
  2. Early Libraries
  3. The Caldwell family and their Library at Linley Wood (1789 to 1949)
  4. Who were the early Caldwells?
  5. History of the World: Early Civilizations (before AD 600)
  6. History of the World: After the Roman Empire (600-1400)
  7. History of the World: Exploration and Reformation (1400-1660)
  8. History of the World: The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution (1660-1700)
  9. History of the World: How to Make Serious Money (1700-1789)
  10. History of the World: The French Revolution and the Rise of the British Empire (1789-1815)
  11. History of the World: After the Napoleonic Wars (1815-1837)
  12. History of the World: Early Victorian Era (1837-1860)
  13. History of the World: Later Victorian Era (1860-1901)
  14. History of the World: Post Victorian Era (1901 to 1949)
  15. The End of the Linley Wood Estate: 1949

Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Inventory Abbreviations
Appendix 2: A Walk Through the Interior of Linley Wood as it probably was in 1925
Appendix 3: Family Trees

I invite you to take a look yourself: jjhc.info/history-of-the-world

J.J.’s visit with Aunt Pat will have me trying her combination of Earl Grey & Lapsang Souchong! But: how it must have felt to be in contact – and to see all her “family relics”. Talk about “priceless”! As a bit of a bibliophile myself, I can readily connect with someone who wishes to regather books from past family libraries…. Jane Austen’s Godmersham estate has a similar task (though they seek to call home their “Godmersham lost sheep” – the actual volumes that used to grace Godmersham Library).

And don’t forget J.J. Heath-Caldwell’s original website, filled with information drawn from the family papers and portraits.

FIVE Schuyler Sisters

note: this continues the blog post Schuyler Biography; call it part II

I did manage – after EIGHT years – to visit the Schuyler Mansion in Albany! My interest dates back to 2015, when in Weehawken, New Jersey – staying at an AirBnB in order to do research at NYU and the Morgan Library. My father, who had time to kill during the day, discovered the sign post that related the history of the nearby dueling grounds – and the deaths of both Philip Hamilton and his father Alexander Hamilton. I was not au courant enough to seek out Broadway productions that week…

So the visit to Albany and the Schuyler Mansion was a LONG time in coming. By the way: the site needs to augment their giftwares! I had expected a large gift shop, filled with books (especially). REALLY miss not being able to buy a guide book to the property — or even a mix of ALL Schuyler-related properties:

The “Historic Houses from Hamilton” site includes a link to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has on display “Door from the Great Hall of Van Rensselaer Manor House, Albany, New York” (related to “Peggy”)

I will say, I REALLY had wanted to hear about the Women of the Schuyler Mansion. For about ten minutes, I was the only person signed up for this special-topic tour. Then a couple joined us. For a few rooms, the tour kept to the topic. It was SO INTENSELY INTERESTING to hear about the correspondence – of Mrs. Schuyler, of Angelica Schuyler Church. QUITE up my alley – and quite revelatory as to these real-life women.

Alas, the others had specific questions that rather kept up a slightly different focus, and the tour rather bowed to their interests. In rooms where we might have been introduced to Cornelia Schuyler and Caty Schuyler — the two youngest sisters – only my questions about the sitters in portraits lining the walls brought forth their later histories.

Cornelia Schuyler Morton (left) and Caty Schuyler Malcolm Cochrane

  • note a related book for Caty: A God-Child of Washington, by Katharine Schuyler Baxter (1897). Note the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
  • New York State Museum has short biographies: Cornelia; Caty

What a truly fascinating set of women! Highly educated, “plugged in” to society and politics, witty, beautiful.

So I’ve been looking for them, and more information about them all. I still recommend the biography of their mother, Catharine (Van Renssalaer) Schuyler (despite Humphreys spelling her first name Catherine, which evidently should be Catharine), as mentioned in my last blog post. The docent mentioned ONE existing letter for Mrs. Schuyler – and she probably used an initial for her first name, but it would be so nice to know for sure how SHE spelled her name.

  • I’ve actually had to bow to “current” spelling in the name of James Edward Austen Leigh, the husband of my Two Teens in the Time of Austen primary focus, Emma Smith. Edward signed many letters and NONE have hyphens, so _I_ do NOT use them. But someone obviously began to hyphenate and “tradition” often spells his name, James-Edward Austen-Leigh. A name is a very personal thing, indeed!

So I will include, as a bit of an addendum, some links to help readers add to their knowledge of the FIVE Schuyler Sisters.

Catherine Schuyler biography (1897)

A few weeks ago, I visited a local(-ish) Revolutionary War related house museum: The DAR John Strong Mansion Museum, in Addison, Vermont. It was a revelation! To walk through rooms filled with furniture and bric-a-brac; letters, documents, and portraits on the walls; ephemera laid out on tables; fabulous architecture, refurbishment, and backstory. I was transported back in time, a guest entertained by the Strongs.

MUCH farther away (about four hours’ drive, each way) is a house museum still on my bucket list: The Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, near Albany, New York. The mansion was the home of General Philip J. Schuyler and his wife Catherine (or Catharine?) Van Rensselaer. It was here that their daughter Elizabeth Schuyler married Alexander Hamilton in 1780.

Of course it is the women of the Schuyler family that interest me.

Recently, I was surprised to see mention made of Angelica Schuyler and the (second-hand) story of her running off with her beau in the book The Baroness and the General (Louise Hall Tharp; 1962) purchased oh-ever-so-long-ago and only now being read with more interest. From John Strong’s Vermont Mansion to Baroness (Frederika Charlotte Luise) Riedesel to the Schuyler Mansion in Albany – three easy steps.

But it was coming across a 2020 biography of Catherine Schuyler, the patriot and matriarch of this younger generation, that I spotted WHY readers were complaining about the print (in book and kindle versions): it was a REPRINT of an 1897 book! Its author with ties to the (American) Civil War.

I sought out a scan of the ORIGINAL printing. It would be great if, when publishers “take” old books, that they update them – new typesetting; correct and/or enlarge upon the subject. I suspect the new biography is merely a “scanned” copy, sold as if a living author has worked on it.

Mary Gay Humphreys‘ biography of Catherine Schuyler was published (1897) as part of the series, WOMEN OF COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. From the Preface:

“The period embraced within the years of Catherine Schuyler’s life is the most exciting in American History.”

A later (1968) reprint, scanned from Stanford University’s collection, lists further volumes in the series; the full set of six include, in addition to Catherine Schuyler:

Happy Reading! I’m diving in as soon as I stop typing…

Jane Hicks (Bournemouth), 1843-1844 Diary (online)

While looking for something TOTALLY different, I came across a diary transcription – complete with annotations, online.

Jane Hicks, born Brown, began this diary soon after the birth of her first child, a son named Dale. Its first entry takes place on March 18, 1843. This archive (see also, Christchurch History Society) has entitled the diary,

The Journal of Mrs. Jane Hicks, of Muccleshell, Holdenhurst, Parish of Christchurch, County of Southamptonshire, March 1843 – October 1844.

Jane Brown married Richard Hicks, 31 May 1842. Jane was born in 1814 and lived until 1896! The accompanying website, the “Jane Hicks’s Journal Gallery,” with information on people and places, has a photograph of Jane and her son Dale. Some rather disconcerting entries, where little Dale is concerned, especially one that states, “Let the baby fall…” (Sept 4)

Check out the double-page image of Jane’s diary in order to see her handwriting!

“Muccleshell” is now part of Throop – in the area of present-day BOURNEMOUTH (Dorsetshire) and called “Bourne” in the diary. The “Gallery” has several maps to help you locate the villages. Nice photos, too.

The information is quite densely packed with text; the journal itself is nicely differentiated, entry and annotation (text in italics). There is a family tree and much information about the Hicks family. Of great interest is the “history” of the diary itself:

“Jane took her diary with her to Australia, and it was her descendants there who preserved it as a family heirloom. Two of these have since written privately-printed family-history books covering Richard and Jane’s life there, one by Val Hicks, and one by Maureen Mannion. It was Maureen who in 1986 sent a photocopy of the diary to Mary Baldwin, a Hampshire genealogist, for further research. This was the basis of an article in the Bournemouth Echo 15 April 1993, and a March 1994 feature by Mary in Dorset Life magazine, “Mrs Dale Hicks Diary.” Mary also sent a copy of the handwritten journal to Michael Stead of Bournemouth Borough Council, who in December 1999 typed it out and began adding annotations to clarify its cryptic entries. Michael’s typed transcript of the handwritten diary text, along with the revised and expanded annotations reproduced above in italics, was published online in the run-up to the town’s 2010 bicentenary, with new and amended info published online on an ongoing basis [the current edition is dated 2016]. Jane Hicks’s journal remains of interest as one of the few local first-hand accounts known for this early period of the town’s history, when it was still known as ‘Bourne.'”

A highly-recommended daily diary of a wife and mother, a marriage, a village, in 1840s Britain.

James Caldwell Diaries & Letters

It was back in November 2022, after listening to the Anne Lister Research Summit presentation of “Mariana, Marriage & (No) Money,” by Shantel Smith, that I learned of Lawton- and Belcombe-related comments among the CALDWELL family diaries (there are letters too). Specifically, the number of “sightings” of Mariana Lawton and visits by the Lawtons or to Lawton Hall.

Two websites have items relating to JAMES CALDWELL (1759-1838) and his daughter ANNE MARSH CALDWELL (1791-1874). The family home, Linley Wood, was in TALKE, Staffordshire.

Another family in Staffordshire quickly sprang to mind: the Tollets of Betley Hall. I love the books edited by Mavis E. Smith (the last edited with her husband Peter Smith):

Sure enough, the Caldwells letters and diaries have LOTS of mentions of the Tollets of Betley Hall! See, for instance, this page of Caldwell diary entries, which covers the 1830s-era of the Tollet journal and letters books. Search [control-f] for Tollet.

James Caldwell’s diary – for 1816 – also mentions “Miss Lister,” who – of course, is Anne Lister of Shibden Hall. The visit took place a month after Mariana’s marriage to Charles Lawton; in company with Mariana (Mrs. C. Lawton) was “Miss Lister” and “Miss Belcombe” (“Nantz” Belcombe, Mariana’s eldest unmarried sister).

Another familiar familial name is Wedgwood – yes, the famous pottery family. Great friends with the Tollets and the Caldwells.

The main page of LINKS to the voluminous Caldwell material, and very useful to bookmark, is: jjhc.info/caldwellnotes

  • Read the strong biography of James Caldwell, with accompanying photographs of family & items, to understand the man behind the James Caldwell diaries (covering, especially, the 1790s through to his death in 1838)

Only now am I lookimg through the material. It makes for exciting reading, just to see the DAILY goings-on of a “landed” gentry family.

Caldwell material also is posted on Michael Heath-Caldwell’s site. More about the second site, later. And I still need to look at the daughters’ diaries and the family letters. So much material, generously posted online. Volunteer opportunities available, in helping to transcribe!