Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

James Southall Wilson Collection, Accession #6453-f, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The papers were a gift to the library by Mr. And Mrs. Charles M. Davison, Jr., 1856 Edgewood Lane, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903, on March 9, 1976. Mrs. Davison is the former Alida Wilson, daughter of James Southall Wilson.

Biographical/Historical Information

James Southall Wilson was born to John and Mary Eliza Jordan Wilson at Bacon's Castle, Surry County, on November 12, 1880. He studied at the College of William and Mary where he received his B. A. degree in 1904. The following year he earned his M. A. at the University of Virginia, and in 1906 his Ph.D. at Princeton. In 1931, the College of William and Mary presented him with an honorary LL.D. degree. Wilson served as assistant professor of English at William and Mary from 1906 to 1908 and professor of history and English from 1908 to 1919. he was a member of the State Board of Education from 1915 to 1919. In 1911 he married Julia Tyler, daughter of Lyon Gardiner Tyler, and granddaughter of John Tyler, President of the United States. They had two daughters, Nancy Tucker and Alida.

In 1919 Wilson came to the University of Virginia as Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English. He succeeded J. C. Metcalf as Dean of Graduate Studies and Chairman of the School of English in 1937 and continued in both positions until his retirement in 1951, when he was named professor emeritus. From 1928 to 1945 he was a member of the faculty of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. After his retirement form the University he served as visiting professor at Louisiana State University, the University of Mississippi, Davison College, and Hollins College.

Wilson was an outstanding and influential teacher with a particular interest in Poe, Shakespeare, and the novel. He was the author of Alexander Wilson, Poet-Naturalist; An Appreciation of Edgar Allan Poe; The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe to George W. Eleveleth; Facts About Poe ; numerous articles, and was the editor of Tales of Edgar Allan Poe . Wilson was instrumental in building the Poe collection in the Alderman Library which became America's richest Poe collection in 1952 by a gift from Clifton Waller Barrett of his priceless collection in honor of Wilson.

Wilson was the founding editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review . He actively edited the magazine from 1925 to 1930, was chairman of the editorial board until 1953 and contributed many articles and book reviews.

While Dean of the Department of Graduate Studies, Wilson made a significant contribution to the development of graduate programs at the University. he served with distinction on National and Regional Associations of Graduate Deans.

Wilson was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Modern Language Association of America, the American Association of University Professors, the Virginia War History Commission, and the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He attended the Episcopal Church. He died at the University Hospital after a short illness on June 26, 1963.

The Tucker and Tyler Families

Julia Tyler Wilson was the daughter of Lyon Gardiner Tyler and Annie Tucker Tyler. Several members of the Tucker family were distinguished lawyers and jurists. St. George Tucker (1752-1827) was a Williamsburg lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the Revolutionary War. He married Frances Bland, widow of John Randolph, and mother of John Randolph of Roanoke, in 1778. After serving as a professor of law at William and Mary, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeals and later to a federal judgeship.

Both of Tucker's sons, Henry St. George and Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, pursued legal careers, Henry St. George Tucker (1780-1848) studied law at William and Mary and fought in the War of 1812. He sat in the United States House of Representatives, and later became president of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. While a professor of law at the University of Virginia, he was instrumental in the introduction of the honor system.

Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851), usually referred to as Beverley Tucker, also practiced law and fought in the War of 1812. A strong advocate of states' rights and secession, he was a professor of law at William and Mary.

St. George Tucker (1828-1863), the son of Henry St. George Tucker and Anne Evelina Hunter, studied at the University of Virginia and read law with his uncle Nathaniel Beverley Tucker at William and Mary. He married Elizabeth Gilmer, daughter of Governor Thomas Walker Gilmer, and their daughter Annie Tucker Tyler was the mother of Julia Tyler Wilson. He was a clerk in the State Senate and House of Representatives, and then opened a school in Ashland. While he was serving as a lieutenant in the Confederate Army, his health was undermined by exposure. He died in Charlottesville in 1863.

Born at "Sherwood Forest" in Charles City County, Lyon Gardiner Tyler (1853-1935) was the son of President John Tyler and his second wife Julia Gardiner Tyler. He studied law with John B. Minor at the University of Virginia, where he took his B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1875 and 1876. He first taught at William and Mary and in Memphis, Tennessee, then practiced law in Richmond, Virginia from 1882-89. While a member of the General Assembly, he was the sponsor of a bill to appropriate $10,000 for the reopening of William and Mary, which had been forced to close its doors and was asked to serve as President of the College from 1888 to 1919, also teaching History and Political Economy. An author and historian as well as a teacher, he founded and published the William and Mary Quarterly from 1892 until 1919, and The Tyler Quarterly from 1919 until his death in 1935.

Scope and Content Information

The James Southall Wilson Collection (#6453-f) consists of correspondence and papers ( ca. 1100 items) of the Wilson, Tyler, Tucker, and Gilmer families, 1781 (1900- 1969). The vast majority of the material relates to the personal and professional life of noted University teacher, editor, and Poe scholar, James Southall Wilson. There are approximately fifty pre-1900 letters written by the ancestors of Wilson's wife, Julia Tyler Wilson, and a fair amount of correspondence (for the years 1876-1935) of her father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, president of the College of William and Mary. This collection would be particularly useful to history and English scholars.

In the early correspondence, there are personal letters written by Frances Bland Tucker to her husband St. George Tucker, Thomas W. Gilmer to his wife Ann, Julia Gardiner Tyler to her mother, Henry St. George Tucker to his brother Beverley, and two letters concerning politics from John Tyler, Jr. to Henry A. Wise. There are several letters from St. George Tucker to his wife Elizabeth Gilmer Tucker, describing his experiences as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army. Lyon Tyler corresponded with his wife, Annie Tucker Tyler, his daughter Julia, and son-in-law James Southall Wilson, and others, concerning family matters and his academic career.

The James Southall Wilson correspondence is largely between members of his immediate family, his wife Julia and two daughters Nancy Tucker and Alida, concerning personal and professional matters. He corresponded with his University colleagues and students and scholars around the country including Edwin A. Alderman, J. C. Metcalf, Charlotte Kohler, Walter Pritchard Eaton, Stringfellow Barr, Atcheson Hench, and Rexmond Cochrane. There are a few letters from people in the literary world such as Allen Tate, Julien Green, Carl Van Doren, and Emily Clark Balch. The subjects discussed in the correspondence are literature, the literary work of Wilson and his associates, life at the University of Virginia, the Virginia Quarterly Review , the Bread Loaf School of English, and various trips abroad. There are many letters of condolence on the deaths of James Southall and Julia Tyler Wilson.

The collection includes a few personal and genealogical papers, such as notebooks, school records, certificates, and diplomas. There are quite a few photographs of Wilson, his family, friends, and colleagues at the University and the Bread Loaf School of English. Gertrude Stein appears in one group photograph. Newspaper clippings and postcards complete the collection.

Arrangement

The collection arrived at the library in rough chronological order. The correspondence has been sorted chronologically, the papers alphabetically by topic, the photographs chronologically, followed by the postcards, and finally the newspaper clippings chronologically.