With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis
Journalism/Non-Fiction
1895 – 1979
Collector and editor of the works of English writer and historian Horace Walpole (1717-1797).
- Biography/Description of Work
W.S. Lewis, born in California, attended the Thatcher School and graduated from Yale University in 1918. Lewis acquired books, manuscripts, and prints as well as graphic and decorative arts, all in an extraordinary attempt to gather information about Horace Walpole and his times, his house at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, his interests, and his friends and contemporaries. Lewis spent nearly half a century editing Walpole’s correspondence. Fully indexed and annotated, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence extends to 48 volumes and was a remarkable accomplishment. In 1928 Lewis married Annie Burr Auchincloss, who graduated in 1920 from Miss Porter’s School in Farmington. As an essential participant in her husband’s collecting, Mrs. Lewis served as their collection’s first curator of prints and was also active in support of historic preservation, perhaps most notably as Vice-Regent for Connecticut for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Aside from a few years spent in Washington during World War II, where Mrs. Lewis worked at the Red Cross and Mr. Lewis worked at the Office of Strategic Services, they lived at 154 Main Street in Farmington until their deaths.
- Sources view
- Lewis Walpole LIbrary web site. [ https://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/about/library_history.html#wdm ]
- Associated Resource(s)