Written by Anna McDougal
James Marshall Osborn, collector of manuscripts, bibliographer, editor, biographer, and literary historian, came into the world on 22 April 1906 (Wellek 1). Osborn went to Wesleyan University in 1924 and received his B.A. in 1928, a time in his life that did not foretell his later scholarly career. After graduating from Wesleyan, Osborn went to work for the Guaranty Trust Company in New York. It was in New York that he met his wife, Marie-Louise Montgomery, for which the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection is partially named. Not long after Osborn started his career in finance, he decided to drastically change paths and pursue a master’s degree in English literature at Columbia University (Wellek). In 1934, Osborn discovered the manuscript riches of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It was then that Osborn “became convinced, as many predecessors had demonstrated, that literary studies should be based on documentary evidence” (Osborn 155). Since this discovery, James Osborn “devoted the last four decades (1934-1974) to discovering new evidence, to evaluating its implications, and to publishing both discoveries and deductions in scholarly form” (155). Osborn served as the curator of the James and Marie-Louise Osborn collection at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library after it was transitioned from his personal possession to the library’s care. In the mid 1950s, Osborn discovered the earliest English autobiography, that of the poet and musician Thomas Whythorne. In 1968, Osborn became the first “American to receive a Doctor of Letters degree in English literature from Oxford University” (The Morning Record). Until his death in 1976, Osborn continued to gather documents to add to the collection of manuscript evidence to benefit the scholars of today and tomorrow.
Unsatisfied with using standard editions and standard authors as a graduate student, Obsorn felt as though “the search for a dissertation topic or other subject for a book often ends in a interpretation or reinterpretation of texts easily available” (Osborn 154). The Osborn Collection’s primary focus consists of evidence valuable to scholarship, and not simply just for the sake of collecting. As Osborn noted, “surrounded as we are by the vast undergrowth of human ignorance, we can derive genuine satisfaction from making a clearing in areas to which we have access…[providing] a challenge both to curiosity and to imagination” (170). The way that current scholars have the ability to access the Osborn Collection online would surely surpass even Osborn’s largest dreams for the library of manuscripts at its beginning. The collection now rivals its “much-longer-established counterparts in Britain,” both in quality and size (Love 155). Osborn’s collection continues to grow through various purchases and donations even after his death, guided by the vision of its founder (156).
Housed today in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the collection is comprised largely of later seventeenth century manuscripts, Elizabethan, Caroline, eighteenth-century, and some medieval scripts. The collection originally focused on English poetry but over the years has broadened to include letters and manuscripts of significant literary figures, as well as historical papers (Yale website). Osborn believed that “the collecting of early modern manuscripts was part of the study of a distinct culture in which the circulation of scribal textas served social functions quite distinct from those served by the printed book” (157). The frank writings of the Restoration, for example, offer current researchers a genuine look at the history of sexuality, gender roles, patronage, and power relations. Without even looking at the content of the writings, the collection proves highly beneficial for the study of scribal methods and materials. As English scholar Harold Love claims: “careful study of these scribes, their relationship with authors, their methods of work, and the nature of their verbal changes to the texts they copied [are of] great value” (158). Other areas, according to Love, of study for which the Osborn collection proves itself exceptional include: genetics of collections, attributions, readership, and editing.
As Osborn intended from the beginning, the collection greatly benefits the scholar wishing to look beyond printed books. The “handwritten documents of past eras [allow the scholar] to learn much more about the characters and attitudes of our literary ancestors, as well as the intellectual and social climate in which they lived” (Yale website). With the ability to take a candid look at the personal writings of the authors whose printed books one typically studies, the opportunity for unique erudition abounds. Osborn’s collection-of-collections provides an extensive view of the source material “which [are] often little explored or not fully exploited” (Witten 383). With the growing practice of digital humanities today in universities across the country, such an accessible breadth of written work makes the possibilities for projects nearly endless. Rather than producing typed papers that will vanish at term’s end, the Osborn collection, and others of its kind, provide the material for and encourage students to create a lasting product from which any student or scholar can benefit.
Studying the poetry of Elizabeth Newell has proven Osborn’s mission for the manuscript library. The intimate look at penmanship and transcription provides the researcher with a glimpse into the life of a 17th century literary woman. Through the study of her written work, it was found that the poetry in fact belongs to Matthew Hale and that the manuscripts were merely copybooks. Although this was seemingly disappointing at first, these discoveries lead the class to numerous research possibilities that had not previously existed. Who was Elizabeth Newell, and how did she have access not only to the poetry of Matthew Hale, but a “room of one’s own” in which to transcribe it? As Harold Love suggests, “the interests of these attributions lies not just with who actually wrote a particular piece, but also with the process of how names came to be attached to texts and on what authority” (158).
Bibliography
“James Marshall Osborn.” The Morning Record, October 25, 1976. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2512&dat=19761025&id=su5cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=51kNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5137,3504307&hl=en.
Love, Harold. “Some Strengths of the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection.” The Yale University Library Gazette 72 (1998): 155-167.
Osborn, James. “Neo-philobiblon: ruminations on manuscript collecting.” Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin (1973).
—-. “The Osborn Collection, 1934-1974.” The Yale University Library Gazette 49 (1974): 154-70.
Wellek, Rene and Alvaro Ribeiro, eds. Evidence in Literary Scholarship: Essays in Memory of James Marshall Osborn. Oxford England: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Witten, Lawrence. “Contemporary Collectors, XXIII: James Marshall Osborn.” Book Collector 8 (1959): 383-396.