Niedecker Personal Library Database

This database contains the books in Niedecker’s library including notes and marginalia.

For a printable list of these titles see: Lorine Niedecker’s Personal Library of Books: A Bibliography
Compiled by Margot Peters

Click on the + sign to the left of a database entry to access bibliographic information and, where relevant, to the notes and marginalia.


wdt_ID Author First Name Author Last Name Title Pub Year Doc Type Publisher Rights Editor Journal Title Article Title Volume Issue Pages URL Notes
1 John Milton L'Allegro, Il penseroso 1900 Book Ginn and Co., N.Y. Notes on inside front cover and first page of book:

- "No. 7 Oshkosh, Wisconsin"

- "St. Peter's High School, Oshkosh, Wisconsin"

- "Helena Gerdes"

- "T. Herkel Artist"

- "10 cents"

- "St. Peter's High School"

- "John McCormick"

- "Rose Wuech"

- "Wally Gerdes"



p. 1: Six words on page are underlined. "Zone, corn, cur" are written near line 11.



p. 2: Lines 25-36 are marked in the margin with the word "Memory" near. Line 41 has "X" and "Morn" in margin.



p. 3: Line 69 has "X" and "Morn" in margin.



p. 4: Three words on page are underlinied. "Noontide" in margin near line 90. "Afternoon" in margin near line 99.



p. 5: "X" and "end" in margin at line 114. "Hymen" checked in line 125 and "god of morning" written in margin.



p. 8: Lines 32-44 are bracketed in margin. Line 31 is check marked. "Choir of Angels Mem." written in margin. Line 45 has "Companion" written near it. "Peace" in line 45, "Fast" in line 46, and "Contemplation" in line 54 have a "C" near them.



p. 25: In space at middle of page "[illegible] Begin Mon" is handwritten.



p. 28: "X" near the end of line 18.



p. 31: "X" in margin at top of page.



p. 39: Line 730 is marked in margin.



p. 54: Lines 131 & 132 are each marked with an "X."



p. 55: Line 177 is marked with an "X."



Notation on inside back cover: "p. 139-158."
2 William Shakespeare The complete works of ____ 1924 Book Oxford Univ. Press, London
3 John Keats The poetical works of ____ 1925 Book Oxford Univ. Press, London
4 Bertrand Russell Selected poems of ____ 1927 Book The Modern Library, N.Y. This notation on Contents page: "No. 15 of blaze and bronze."
5 Henry David Thoreau Walden or life in the woods 1927 Book Everyman's Library, E.P. Dutton, N.Y. On slip of paper tucked between front cover and first page: "Of Thoreau - He chose to be rich by making his wants few. - Emerson"



Tucked between pp. 68-69 us a page from the New York Times Review of Books, May 6, 1962, with a column by J. Donald Adams called "Speaking of Books," which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Thoreau's death.
6 Edith Hamilton The Roman way 1932 Book W.W. Norton Co., N.Y.
7 Handbook of Marxism 1935 Book International Publishers Emile, Burns p. 7: Checkmark in table of contents next to XXIV. V.I. Lenin - What is to be done: Dogmatism and 'Freedom of Criticism' - Trade Union Politics and Social Democratic Politics.



p. 9: In table of contents page number 855 is boxed with pencil for item V.I. Lenin - 'Left-Wing' Communism: an Infantile Disorder.



p. 724: The end of a quote from Engels is marked in the margin "... whose purpose is to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power arising out of society, but placing itself above it, and increasingly separating itself from it, is the State." Just below this quote, a sentence is marked in the margins with a double line " The State is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms."



pP. 730-731: Quote by Kautsky is marked in the margin with "US?" - "... there are periods whedn the warring classes so nearly attain equilibrium that the State power, ostensibly appearing as a mediator, assumes for the moment a certain independence in relation to both." Paragraph beginning "Such, we may add, is now the Kerensky government..." on page 730 is marked in margin. Paragraph beginning "In a democratic republic..." at top of page 731 is marked in margin. Seven lines beginning with "A democratic republic is the best possible..." in last full paragraph on paged 731 are marked in margin and have a question mark along side. This sentence is marked in margin and has two question marks along side: "We must also note that Engels quite definitely regards universal suffrage as a means of bourgeois domination."



p. 732: Portion of a quote from Engels is marked boldly in margin: "We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity but is becoming a positive hindrance to production."



p. 734: Four lines of a quote from Engel at top of page are marked in the margin, starting with: "...a State, is no longer necessary.." The following sentence is marked in the margin along with a question mark: "The current popular conception, if one may say so, of the 'withering away' of the State undoubtedly means a slurring over, if not a negation, of revolution."



p. 738: Five lines beginning with "Eclecticism is substituted for dialectics..." are marked in the margin, with a question mark along side.
8 John Reed Ten days that shook the world 1935 Book The Modern Library, N.Y.
9 Horace The complete works of ____ 1936 Book Random House, Inc., N.Y.
10 John Blake Complete poetry of each 1941 Book Random House, N.Y.
Author First Name Author Last Name Title Pub Year Doc Type Publisher Rights Editor Journal Title Article Title Volume Issue Pages URL Notes