Letters of Stuart Merrill

Stuart Merrill (1863-1915), who was born in America but who spent most of his life in France, became one of the leading poets of the symbolist movement. The Lilly library possesses a collection of his letters to his mother, written from his home in Versailles, between June 1914 and his death in December 1915. In them he describes the outbreak of the war, the rapidly deteriorating condition of his mariage to a much younger Belgian woman, and his richly varied social life.This article offers an annotated selection of these letters. (MC/RL)