Laurence Hutton (August 8, 1843 – June 10, 1904) was an American essayist and critic.
Biography Hutton was born in New York City on August 8, 1843, and educated privately there. He was an inveterate traveler and for about 20 years spent his summers abroad. From about 1870 he contributed continually to periodicals. He was the dramatic critic of the New York Evening Mail from 1872 to 1874. From 1886 to 1898 he was the literary editor of Harper's Magazine. He was one of the organizers of the Authors' Club and of the International Copyright League, and was a founding member of The Players, and a member of the Princeton Club, and the Nassau Club. An ardent collector of literary curiosities, his collections are of remarkable interest. In 1892 he received the degree of A.M. from Yale University and an honorary Master of Art degree from Princeton University in 1897."Hutton, Laurence (1843–1904)". In: New International Encyclopedia, Vol. 10. New York: Dodd, Mead, p. 352. From 1901 until his death in 1904, he was a lecturer of English at Princeton.
Hutton died of pneumonia in New York City in 1904. He left a collection of papers (Laurence Hutton Papers), 801 rare books, and a collection of death masks to the Princeton University Library. After his death, his friend Samuel Elliott donated $2,500 in his memory to endow the Laurence Hutton Prize, awarded annually to the top student in the Princeton University Department of History."The Laurence Hutton Prize Fund", The Caledonian (April 1915), p. 152.Catalogue of Princeton University, 1916-1917, (Princeton: Princeton University, 1916), p. 409.
Death mask collection According to Princeton University,"Death Masks (Princeton University)" Hutton's collection of life and death masks contains about 100 masks and is the largest of its kind in the United States. Frank Weitenkampf quotes Hutton and the Epoch magazine on its genesis:Manhattan Kaleidoscope, Frank Weitenkampf, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947, page 186.
Princeton maintains an online repository of death-mask images from the collection: "Laurence Hutton Collection of Life and Death Mask, A Pictorial Guide by John Delaney".
Works His writings on dramatic subjects include: Plays and Players (1875) Curiosities of the American Stage (1891) Memoir of Edwin Booth (1893) with Brander Matthews, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and of the United States (1886–87) A Boy I Knew (1899)
He edited the American Actor Series (1881–82) and published a group of delightful literary guidebooks, including: Literary Landmarks of London (1887) Edinburgh (1892) Jerusalem (1895) Venice (1896) Florence (1897) Rome (1897) Literary Landmarks of the Scottish Universities (1904)
Other works: Portraits in Plaster, from the Collection of Laurence Hutton, Harper & Brothers, New York (1894)
References
Further reading Moore, Isabel (1905). Talks in a Library with Laurence Hutton. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Wood, M.E. (1905). Laurence and Eleanor Hutton: Their Books of Association. New York: Privately Printed.
External links
Works by Laurence Hutton at HathiTrust