Browse Items (206 total)

Early artwork done by James Merrill. These cutouts of dancing ladies show a lifelong affinity toward drawing the female face and form, especially sophisticated, beautiful women, often in costume.

This photo album, entitled "Happy Days at Stonington," includes snapshots taken around James Merrill and David Jackson's home at 107 Water Street, along with colorful commentary.

James Merrill's National Book Award for Mirabell: Books of Number. It was Merrill's second National Book Award win in 12 years. Merrill gave the prize money to Hubbell Pierce, inventor of the bat wallpaper at 107 Water Street where many…

James Merrill as a cadet. Merrill was designated for "limited service only" because of poor eyesight.

James Merrill's baby book with birth announcement. Discussed in Merrill's memoir, A Different Person, the baby book contains the list of gifts Merrill received at birth, including stock shares, silver spoons, gold diaper pins, etc.

James Merrill's silver baby cup and spoon from Tiffany & Co.

James Merrill's bronzed baby shoes.

A homemade Ouija board, one of numerous boards James Merrill and David Jackson employed through the years for their séances. Merrill said they preferred these to the store-bought boards because they allowed for more room for clearer and faster…

During the October 8 and 10, 1979 séances, Merrill finds out about and communicates with the recently deceased Elizabeth Bishop, an esteemed poet who influenced his own work and a close friend.

The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace, first published in 1959, contains poems written over an eight-year period, which "are a collection of symbols and epiphanies drawn from experience but set off from it in an ideal, timeless space, a…