Pastor of the Unitarian Church of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1958-1966, and an avid collector of Irish literature. Hitchen, born in Norland, Yorkshire, formed his collection around publications from the Cuala Press, a small press in Dublin owned by Elizabeth C. Yeats, as well as manuscript material from poets and playwrights such as Joseph Campbell, Lennox Robinson, Jack B. Yeats, Willam B. Yeats, and George Russell. Consists of broadsides, correspondence, photographs, catalogs, clippings, prospectuses, and publications concerned with modern Irish literature, mainly from the period known as the Irish Renaissance.