Harry Bache Smith:

An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

Biographical Sketch

Harry Bache Smith was born in Buffalo, NY, on December 28, 1860, to Elizabeth Bach and Josiah Bailey Smith. The Smith family moved to Chicago in the 1860s where Harry began writing and collecting rare books, manuscripts, and autographs. After starting as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, Smith later became a music critic for that paper. He also worked for the Chicago Tribune as a drama critic. By 1874, Smith had begun writing musical plays and operettas. His first operetta, Rosita, or Cupid and Cupidity, was produced by the Fay Templeton Opera Company. Amaryllis, his second production, was a musical comedy and became popular with amateur dramatic clubs. As a result of this exposure, Smith was engaged to write a series of burlesques for the Chicago Opera House.

In 1887, Smith and Reginald DeKoven collaborated on Begum, a comic operetta that received enough support for the collaboration to continue and to produce one of the most popular American operas, Robin Hood, which played almost continuously for twenty years. The Wizard of the Nile was created for the comedian Frank Daniels in 1895, with Victor Herbert writing the score. Besides Herbert and DeKoven, Smith collaborated with Irving Berlin, Ivan Caryl, Leo Fall, Gustave Kerker, Jerome Kern, Franz Lehar, Sigmund Romberg, John Philip Sousa, and Oscar Strauss. The author of some 300 librettos and over 6000 lyrics, Smith was respected in the theater world for his creative and humorous style of writing. Broadway saw 123 of his shows, which also played in other cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia. Smith was the earliest American lyricist to be honored with a published collection of his lyrics.

Smith wrote articles on literature and music for Scribner's, The Century, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, American Mercury, and other magazines. He was also known by collectors of rare books, manuscripts, and autographs. Published in 1914, A Sentimental Library (available in the HRC book collection) is a catalogue of books, manuscripts, drawings, and presentation copies collected and described by Smith.

Smith married Lena Reed in October 1887, and had one son, Sydney R. Smith. In November 1906, Harry Smith married actress Irene Bentley. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Smith summarized, critiqued, and evaluated plays and stories that Warner Brothers was considering for theatrical productions or motion pictures. Harry Bache Smith died on January 1, 1936.

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Scope and Contents

The material in the Harry Bache Smith papers pertains primarily to his writing career and collecting interests as illustrated by correspondence, autographs, manuscripts of his own work and that of others, notes and drafts, scrapbooks and clippings, receipts, and music scores. The majority of the material concerns Smith's book and manuscript collecting interests, however, only a few of the manuscripts and autographs described in A Sentimental Library are included in this collection. Materials range in date from 1773 to 1935 with the bulk dating from 1890-1930. The collection is arranged in four series: Correspondence, Works by Smith, Collecting Activities, and Miscellaneous.

Series I: Correspondence, 1775-1931 (2 boxes) contains information about Smith's theater career and collecting activities. Several of his collaborators, actors, actresses, and publishers discussed changes or additions to his works and the production of his writing in their correspondence with Smith. Correspondents include Victor Herbert, Reginald DeKovan, Irving Berlin, Ivan Caryl, David Belasco, Jerome Kern, John Philip Sousa, as well as many others. Also included in the correspondence series are the autographs and third party letters collected by Smith from people such as Joanna Baillie, Dion Boucicault, George Coleman, Robert William Elliston, David Garrick, Charles John Kean, and Mitchell Kennerley.

Series II: Works by Smith, 1902-1934 (3 boxes) pertains specifically to his writing for the theater. Over fifty manuscripts of his plays and librettos are in this series, spanning in date from 1902-1934, although most of the manuscripts are undated. None of his major theatrical hits are present in the collection, but typescripts for The Office Boy (1903), [Ziegfield] Follies of 1912, Angel Face (1919), The Highwayman, Babette, and Dolly Dollar are a few of the titles present in this series.

Writings relating to Smith's interest in collecting are in Series III: Collecting Activities, 1823-1935 (9 boxes). More than twenty of his articles relating to his collecting interests are in this series. Smith created seven scrapbooks consisting of newspaper clippings, articles, descriptions from book dealer's catalogs, and his notes about authors such as Charles Dickens, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, William Makepeace Thackeray, Lord Byron, and others. The information in these scrapbooks supplements the drafts and notes for his book, A Sentimental Library. Other documents in this series include receipts for books and manuscripts purchased by Smith from 1894-1935, and works by others that Smith collected, including original music scores by Victor Herbert, Riccardo Drigo, and Jerome Kern.

Items not connected with Smith's theater career or collecting activities are in Series IV: Miscellaneous, 1913-1931 (1 box), which includes over 67 plays and stories evaluated by Smith for Warner Brothers. Personal information is limited to his writing and collecting. There is no correspondence between Smith and family members, nor is there information regarding his personal relationships with either of his wives, or his son.

Several published collaborations between Smith and Reginald DeKoven, Richard Wagner, and Victor Herbert are part of the book collection at the HRC. Smith's autobiography, First Nights and First Editions, as well as A Sentimental Library are also part of the HRC book collection. Other materials about Smith can be found in the Biographical files of the Theater Arts collection of the HRC.

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Restrictions

Access

Open for research

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Administrative Information

Acquisition

Purchase, June 1968

Processed by

Deborah Shelby, 1992

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Harry Bache Smith Papers--Series descriptions and folder lists

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 Harry Bache Smith Papers--Index of Correspondents and autographs 

This is an alphabetical index to letters written to Smith as well as autographs he collected. Letters written to Smith are indicated by a name and date only. Recipients of the third party letters are named in the index when they could be determined. Otherwise, "autographed letter" follows the name of the writer. When there is only a signature present in the folder, it is identified as an "autograph". Individuals whose names were not legible are not listed in the index.

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