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Summary Information

Repository
Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Lilly Library
Indiana University
1200 E. Seventh St.
Bloomington, IN 47405-5500
Phone: 812-855-2452
Fax: 812-855-3143
Email: liblilly@indiana.edu

Creator
Hahn, Emily, 1905-1997.

Collection No.
LMC 1438

Extent
7258 items

Language
Materials are in English.

Abstract
Collection consists of the correspondence and writings of author Emily Hahn.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Biographical Note

Hahn was born in St. Louis and lived there until her family moved to Chicago during her high school years. She later attended the University of Wisconsin and in 1926 received the first mining engineering degree awarded to a female student. Following graduation, until the spring of 1927, she worked for an engineering firm in St. Louis and then as a company courier for that firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Returning to the East during the summer, she attended Columbia University for graduate work, taught geology during the 1927/28 academic year, and then headed for Europe on her first overseas tour. After living in Florence and London, she returned home briefly in 1929 before going to the Congo and two years' residence there. In 1932 she began further travels, finally settling in Shanghai in 1935 where she taught English for three years.

All during this decade of travel and adventure Hahn wrote almost continually--articles, stories, letters--and many of her pieces were printed in The New Yorker, as well as five full-length books being published. Fortunately, as a supplement to her writings, the collection also contains Hahn's letters home to her mother and family while she lived and traveled in Europe, Africa, and China. This early correspondence is particularly descriptive of people, places, and activities, and is most interesting for the early years of Asian conflict that would later be seen as a prelude of World War II. The Sino-Japanese conflict eventually caused Hahn to leave Shanghai for Hong Kong, where she was later forced to remain after the Japanese took over that area in 1941. She was finally repatriated in 1943 and proceeded to produce two books concerning those years: China to Me and Hong Kong Holiday. In 1945 Hahn married British Major Charles Ralph Boxer, 1904-2000, whom she had met in Hong Kong prior to his internment as a POW, and following the war they moved to his family home in England. She continued to write short fiction, articles for magazine publication, particularly The New Yorker, and a remarkable number of books. During the 1950's she ventured into the juvenile field with some fiction, juvenile biographies, and descriptions of some of the countries in which she had traveled or lived. Other publications include biographies of Aphra Behn, James Brooke, Fanny Burney, Chiang kai-shek, D.H. Lawrence, and Mabel Dodge Luhan; a description of the diamond business; four books on zoos and animals; histories of China, Ireland, women; and several autobiographical accounts.

Scope and Content Note

In addition to drafts of her writings, typescripts, galleys, photographs, and research materials relating to many of her publications, the collection also contains several unpublished fictional pieces; college notes; family memorabilia and letters; photographs of various areas of the United States and Africa taken during the 1930's; clippings of book reviews and articles by and about Hahn; and miscellaneous clippings relating to people and places familiar to her.

Note on Indexing Term - "Travel": Contains Hahn's letters home to her family while she lived and travelled in Europe, Africa and China during the 1920s and 1930s. This correspondence is particularly descriptive of people, places and activities.

• Indexing Terms

• • Names
  • Hahn, Emily, 1905-1997 --Correspondence.
  • Boxer, C. R. (Charles Ralph), 1904-2000 --Correspondence.
  • Bruccoli, Matthew J. (Matthew Joseph), 1931-2008 --Correspondence.
  • Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973--Correspondence.
  • MacDonald, Malcolm, 1901-1981 --Correspondence.
  • Oppenheimer, H. F. (Harry Frederick), 1908-2000 --Correspondence.
  • Sassoon, Elias Victor, 1881-1961 --Correspondence.
  • Shawn, William --Correspondence.
  • West, Rebecca, 1892-1983 --Correspondence.
  • Kennedy, Margaret, 1896-1967 --Correspondence.
• • Topics
  • Authors, American --Correspondence.
  • Travel
  • Women

Related Material

Complementing this collection are the Hahn-Brandt mss. which consist of her literary agent's files on her behalf, and the Bobbs-Merrill mss. containing materials related to her books published by that firm.

Other related manuscripts include: Hahn mss. II, Hahn mss. III, Hahn mss. IV

Administrative Information