Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 671

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.4 linear_foot (1 box)

Language:

English

Date:

1918-1930 (inclusive) and 1928-1930 (bulk)

Creator:

Sterner, Lewis George

Form:

Correspondence and Poetry

Abstract:

Lewis George Sterner (1894-1965) was a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed a doctoral thesis on "The Sonnet in American Literature" (submitted 1930). The bulk of this collection consists of letters to Lewis George Sterner from prominent poets and literary figures from 1927 to 1930, as a result of Sterner's research for his dissertation regarding the trends in American sonnet-writing and relating to permissions for using these writers' sonnets in his thesis.

Born in 1894, Lewis George Sterner received his bachelor's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1915, after which he served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps and Medical Department in Allentown, Pennsylvania, during World War I. After the war he returned to his studies and to the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed a doctoral thesis on "The Sonnet in American Literature" (submitted 1930). His dissertation advisor was Arthur Hobson Quinn. Later he edited several anthologies of short stories and narrative poetry.

He appears to have worked as a teacher for the School District of Philadelphia for much of his career. He died on November 8, 1965, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The bulk of this collection consists of letters to Lewis George Sterner from prominent poets and literary figures from 1927 to 1930, as a result of Sterner's research for his dissertation. These items discuss trends in American sonnet-writing and relate to permissions for using these writers' sonnets in Sterner's thesis, "The Sonnet in American Literature," which was submitted 1930.

There are only a few letters written by Sterner. In additions to the letters, there are also 8 items of autographs and copies of poems inscribed to Sterner, collected during a "passing craze" in 1918.

The collection origins are outlined in a letter to University of Pennsylvania professor Arthur Hobson Quinn (folder 55), to whom Sterner gave the collection in 1930.