George Warren Arms collection

The George Warren Arms Collection consists of letters, manuscripts and subject files documenting the life and work of George Warren Arms. The collection spans the years 1848-1988.

The collection is housed in 8 boxes and organized into three series: Correspondence, Writings of Others and Subject Files. Box 8 contains Restricted Fragile Papers.

Series I, Correspondence , is organized into two subseries: General Correspondence and Third-Party Correspondence.

General Correspondence, housed in boxes 1-2, consists of correspondence between Arms and writers, scholars, booksellers, autograph dealers and others. Arms wrote extensively on William Dean Howells, and much of the correspondence pertains to Howells and other 19th and early 20th century American writers.

Carbon copies of letters from Arms to others are present in much of this subseries.

Third-Party Correspondence, housed in boxes 3-5, consists of letters, mostly ALS dating from the mid-late 19th century, which Arms collected for his own research and for research by students in courses at the University of New Mexico. Letters are arranged alphabetically by author and then by correspondent. Included are George William Curtis, James Thomas Fields, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, William Dean Howells, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton and Calvin Ellis Stowe.

Typescript copies of letters and biographical notes are present in parts of this subseries. Specifically, many of the Howells letters are accompanied by typescript copies, and many of the Fields, Freeman, Howells and Norton letters are accompanied by notes on small index cards.

Series II, Writings of Others , housed in box 6, is arranged alphabetically by author and then by title. There is a draft fragment by Howells entitled "Literary Friends and Acquaintance," as well as a letter to the editor by Charles Eliot Norton. Otherwise, the writings subseries consists of work by Arms' students dating from the early and mid 1960s. There are explications of letters from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horace Elisha Scudder and James Huneker, in addition to those from writers represented in the Third-Party Correspondence.

Series III, Subject Files , housed in box 7, is arranged alphabetically by name. The Subject Files contain bibliographic information, predominantly printed fragments from bookdealers' catalogs, biographical and critical notes, and, in a few cases, copies of letters. Once again the emphasis is on 19th century American authors. Authors not found or mentioned in earlier subseries are William E. Channing, F. Marion Crawford, Edgar Fawcett and Charles Warren Stoddard.

Restricted Fragile Papers are housed in box 8.