Scope and Content Note
The paper of Burton Egbert Stevenson (1872-1962) span the years 1900-1951. A librarian for much of his career, Stevenson also published over fifty books of his own fiction and of poetry anthologies during his lifetime. The collection consists of correspondence with poets and other writers, comments on the origin of quotations, obscure biographical data on literary figures, and negotiations with publishers relating to the compilation of several anthologies by Stevenson. Also featured are correspondence and administrative files from his service as European representative of the American Library Association, including material on the American Library in Paris, founded in 1918. A final segment contains drafts and copies of his own writings. The collection is organized into four series: General Correspondence ; American Library Association File ; and Speeches, Articles, and Book File ; and Oversize .
Much of the correspondence in the American Library Association series consists of formal requests for reading material from soldiers on the front during World War I from Library War Service. Some of the General Correspondence concerns challenges to the received authorship of famous poems by writers such as Joaquin Miller, Clement Clarke Moore, and Emma Wheeler Wilcox.
Correspondents include fellow librarians Charles Thomas Agnew MacLean, Carl Hastings Milam, Herbert Putnam, and M. Llewellyn Raney.