The Byron Society Collection, founded by Marsha M. Manns and Leslie A. Marchand, was conceived of as a living collection to which Byron Society members and friends could contribute their own collections.
Housed in Drew University’s special collections, the nearly 5,000 items present a material history of Byron’s literary and cultural impact from the 19th century to the present day.
Among the collection’s holdings are:
- 1,900 volumes, including many early editions
- Letters from Catherine Gordon Byron, Thomas Moore, Lady Byron, and others
- 600 books and 60 material objects belonging to Michael Rees, former Secretary of the International Council of Byron Societies
- Visual representations and portraits, such as Rembrandt Peale’s 1825 lithograph of Byron, as well as statuary, mezzotints and engravings, Staffordshire figures, and decorative and other material objects that demonstrate the impact of Byron’s life and works on his readers, both past and present
- Papers, correspondence, books, and photographs once owned by the late Leslie A. Marchand, author of Byron: A Biography and editor of Byron’s Letters and Journals.
- Byron-related papers of Jerome McGann, an important critic of Romanticim and Byron studies, and the editor of Byron: The Complete Poetical Works, as well as a large set of facsimiles of Byron MSS and associated Byroniana, scholarly, and critical materials.
- The archives of the Byron Society of America
By nature the collection is interdisciplinary and is situated at the institutional intersection of the library and the museum. It is being developed for scholars, students, and individuals interested in the Romantic period in literature, in the Greek Revolution, in publishing history, in the decorative arts, and in cultural studies. Since its founding in 1995, the collection’s holdings have grown significantly.