James Marshall Osborn Research Files

James Marshall Osborn, literary historian, founder of the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection at Yale University, and Holstein cattle breeder, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1906. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1928, and joined the investment advisory department of Guaranty Trust in New York. The next year, he married Marie-Louise Montgomery, a graduate of Vassar.

In 1932 Osborn left Guaranty Trust to study for a Master's degree in English at Columbia University. Two years later, the Osborns moved to England with their two sons, and James began to work toward a B.Litt degree at Oxford University. While at Oxford, Osborn pursued his interest in eighteenth-century literary history and began to acquire the literary and historical manuscripts that would form the core of the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection.

Osborn was appointed Research Associate in English at Yale University in 1938; he held the position until his death. He was named Adviser on Seventeenth Century Manuscripts to the Yale Library in 1954, and in 1963, when he began the transfer of his collection to Yale, became the first curator of the Osborn Collection.

Osborn's publications include The Autobiography of Thomas Whythorne (1961); an edition of Joseph Spence's Observations, Anecdotes and Characters (1966); and Young Philip Sidney (1972).

In addition to his scholarly activities, Osborn was also a noted dairy cattle breeder and promoter of Holsteins from 1940 to 1960. He received the D.Litt from Oxford University in 1968, and was named Curator Emeritus of the Osborn Collection in 1972. James Marshall Osborn died in New Haven on October 17, 1976.