Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Letters to Demetra Vaka Brown, Accession #9732-f, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was transferred from the Rare Book Department on November 21, 1983.

Biographical/Historical Information

Demetra Vaka Brown (1877-1946), a Byzantine Greek, was born on the Island of Bouyouk-Ada (Prinkipo) in the Sea of Marmora. She came to America at the age of seventeen and was on the editorial staff of a Greek language newspaper in New York before teaching French at Comstock School. She married Kenneth Brown on April 21, 1904. She traveled extensively in the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Greece, and interviewed King Constantine and Eleutherios Venizelos, as well as other leaders. She was author, and co-author with her husband, of books including The First Secretary (1907), In the Shadow of Islam (1911), In the Heart of the Balkans (1917), In the Heart of the German Intrigue (1918), and A Pawn to a Throne (1919).

Scope and Content

Julia D. Dragoumis, author of Tales of a Greek Island (1912), and A Man of Athens (1916), wrote Brown,, praising and discussing her book In the Heart of the German Intrigue. Later, she wrote thanking Brown for sending her the copy of A Pawn to a Throne and notes that it was dedicated to Venizelos.

Helen von Kolnitz Hyer, author of On Shiny Wings, Hurricane Harbor, Stories by Seasons, Santee Songs (1923), and Wine Dark Sea (1930), wrote Brown expressing her appreciation of the praise received for her recently published poems, [ Wine Dark Sea? ]. She also promises to read Brown's books, and mentions William Rose Benet's devastating review of the work.

Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote Brown thanking her for a rememberance.