Guide to the Robert Frost letters to Leonard Bacon, 1916, 1937
Special Collections, James P. Adams Library
Rhode Island College
600 Mount Pleasant Ave
Providence, RI, 02908
Tel: 401-456-8380
email:digitalcommons@ric.edu
Published in 2024
Collection Overview
| Title: | Robert Frost letters to Leonard Bacon |
| Date range: | 1916, 1937 |
| Creator: | Frost, Robert, 1874-1963. |
| Extent: | 0.01 cubic feet |
| Abstract: | Two letters written by Robert Frost to Leonard Bacon. |
| Language of materials: | English |
| Repository: | Special Collections, James P. Adams Library |
| Collection number: | MSS-0119 |
Scope & content
The collection contains two letters written by Robert Frost to Leonard Bacon. In the first letter, dated April 3, 1916, Frost wrote of poems and Bacon’s potential visit that summer. The second letter, dated January 24, 1937, was written as a poem and describes religious and cultural ideologies. The collection also includes typed transcripts of the letters.Access Points
Subject Names Document TypesArrangement
The collection is arranged in chronological order.
Biographical/Historical Note
Leonard Bacon, son of Nathaniel Bacon and Helen Hazard Bacon, was born May 26, 1887, in Syracuse, New York. A poet and literary critic, he was class poet and editor of the Literary Magazine at Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1909. Upon graduation, he taught English at the University of California at Berkeley until 1923, when he left California and returned to Peace Dale, Rhode Island, to concentrate exclusively on his writing. He won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1940 for his work, “Sunderland Capture;” he was also a literary critic for Saturday Review of Literature and Harper’s. He married Martha Stringham in 1912 and was the father of three children: Helen, Alice, and Martha. He died January 1, 1954.Robert Frost was an American poet born in 1874 and died in 1963. Frost and Bacon met in Franconia, New Hampshire through the Reverend and Mrs. J. Warner Fobes, who owned property near Frost and were relatives of Bacon. Bacon dedicated his 1936 book, “Rhyme and Punishment,” to Frost.
Access & Use
| Access to the collection: | The collection is open for research. |
| Use of the materials: | Researchers are advised to contact Rhode Island College Special Collections for questions regarding permissions to reproduce, distribute, or otherwise publish material from this collection. Although Rhode Island College has physical ownership of the collection, it does not necessarily hold literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them. |
| Alternate form: | The collection has not been digitized and is not available online. |
| Preferred citation: | Robert Frost letters to Leonard Bacon, MSS-0119, Collections, James P. Adams Library, Rhode Island College. |
| Contact information: | Special Collections, James P. Adams Library Rhode Island College 600 Mount Pleasant Ave Providence, RI, 02908 Tel: 401-456-8380 email:digitalcommons@ric.edu |
Administrative Information
| ABOUT THE COLLECTION | |
| Acquisition: | The letters were found in Leonard Bacon’s book, “Rhyme and Punishment” (SP COLL PS3503.A196 R5 1936 L. Bacon), which is part of the Leonard Bacon Book Collection in Special Collections, prior to 2022. The Leonard Bacon Book Collection was donated by Martha Bacon Ballinger with the consent of her husband, Ronald B. Ballinger, as well as her sister, Helen Bacon Westlake, and Helen’s husband, J.T. Westlake, in 1968. |
| Processing information: | The collection was described by Veronica L. Denison, Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, in 2024. |
| ABOUT THE FINDING AID | |
| Author: | Finding aid prepared by Veronica L. Denison. |
| Encoding: | This finding aid was encoded by Veronica L. Denison, 2024 |
| Descriptive rules: | Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) |
Additional Information
| Related material: | The Rhode Island College Special Collections contains a table that was used by Leonard Bacon, as well as a bust of Bacon. Rhode Island College Special Collections also holds the Leonard Bacon letters, MSS-0107, which were purchased in 1977 and 1981, and the Leonard Bacon papers, MSS-0094, which were donated by Bacon’s granddaughter, Martha Bacon Ballinger and Ronald Ballinger, along with several of Leonard Bacon’s books. The envelope in which the letters were found is glued in the book they were in, which is part of the Leonard Bacon Book Collection in Special Collections. |
| Location/Existence of copies: | The collection has not been digitized and is not available online. |
| Other information: |
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