Mazer Archives May 2021 Newsletter | Out of the Archives: The Margaret Porter Collection

The Margaret Porter Rare Book Collection

Marilee’s Story:

Imagine my delighted surprise when one morning, I walked into the Mazer Lesbian Archives and found about twenty-five boxes of books that belonged to Margaret Porter. There were close to one thousand books in the collection.

What a thrill to be the person to create a detailed bibliography of this collection for the Mazer. Margaret Porter was a poet and a translator of Renee Vivien, Natalie Clifford Barney and other expatriate writers in Paris.

After researching all of these amazing books, we discovered that this collection contains about fifty books that we consider rare. Some are first editions; some are very old, and with some, there seem to be only one, two or three in existence! This was a very thrilling discovery.

A handful of the books we consider rare are as follows:

Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, 1932; The White Heron, First Edition, by M.A. Porter (and inscribed by Porter), 1974; Collected Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1941; Album Secret in French (one of two copies) by Renee Vivien, Natalie Barney and Eva Palmer; and Ryder by Djuna Barnes, 1928.

Eventually, all of the Margaret Porter book collection will be on display in the Mazer Archives. The rare book collection will have its own location adjacent to the total collection. The collection will be available to view with archival protocols by researchers and other guests of the Mazer.

To discover more of the Margaret Porter Rare Book Collection, click here to explore our finding aids the guides to the Mazer’s Collections.