A MANUSCRIPT OF JOHN KEATS AT DUMBARTON OAKS

This short booklet is an offprint from the Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol I, No. 1 from Winter 1947. It was written by Ethel Burnet Clark the first librarian of Dumbarton Oaks and is inscribed by her on the original wrappers. "To the Director of Dumbarton Oaks the Hon. Keeper of Rare Books" Clark was Keeper of Rare Books at Dumbarton from 1940-1944. She only surrendered her position because she had reached the age at which Harvard required retirement. Nonetheless, Clark was able to remain at Dumbarton Oaks after her official "retirement," under the title: "Keeper of Rare Books, Emerita." In this capacity, Clark continued her work at Dumbarton Oaks and received a small monthly pension in addition to living quarters at the Acorn House, a small cottage on the Dumbarton Oaks property. Later, in the 1960s, she also helped catalog the Mary Mellon collection of books and manuscripts on alchemy and the occult, which Paul Mellon then gave to Yale University. John Thatcher was the director whom this volume was inscribed to.
This volume has been bound with the original wrappers in nice quality brown library buckram with gilt titling. A fine copy with no wear. The manuscript is a one page sonnet to Spenser by Keats and Clark explains it's history and how it came to be at Dumbarton Oaks. Thanks to the Dumbarton Oaks online archive and their article, " Librarian, Poet, Bookbinder, Patriot: Ethel Burnet Clark" for some of the information used above.