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Finding Aid To The Collection Of Victoria Sackville-West Materials., Victoria Sackville-West, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

The collection contains 27 letters and 4 greeting cards of personal correspondence written between 1947-1961, from V. Sackville-West at her home at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, U.K., to Grace Mountcastle Martin in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Many of the letters convey the author's thanks for shipments of sugar and soap during times of rationing in the U.K.

V. [Victoria or "Vita"] Sackville-West, English poet, novelist, socialite and suffragette, was born in 1892 at her family's estate at Knole in Kent. Privately educated, she began writing poetry at age 11, and had produced 8 novels and 5 plays by the time of her …

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Celia Thaxter Materials, Celia Thaxter, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

Celia Laighton Thaxter, 1835-1894, was an American poet and prose writer. Born Celia Laighton in Portsmouth, N.H., she spent her childhood on White Island Lighthouse, part of Isles of Shoals, and Appledore Island. At 16 she married Levi Thaxter and had three sons, Karl, John, and Roland. The family spent winters on the mainland in Massachusetts, where Celia felt imprisoned by domestic duties in a city house. Her first poem, "Land-locked," was published in 1860 and was an immediate success. Soon she became widely published, with poems appearing in Harper's, Scribner's, and the Atlantic. With the means to spend more …

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Louise Helen Coburn Materials, Louise Helen Coburn, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

Louise Helen Coburn was born in Skowhegan, Maine on September 1, 1856, daughter of Stephen Coburn and Helen Sophia Miller. Coburn was Colby's second female graduate (after Mary Low Carver) in 1877, and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. She also later received an honorary Litt. D. degree from Colby in 1914. Coburn's family was deeply tied to Colby College. Her father Stephen graduated in 1839, and the Coburn family was critical to Colby's early development as benefactors. Coburn was a co-founder, along with Mary Low Carver and others, of the Sigma Kappa Sorority. Coburn also later attended the Harvard …