The Edith Roelker Curtis Papers document Curtis' literary output, family history and personal reflections. The collection of diaries, which were annotated by Curtis' granddaughter, Edith Byron, covers many years, beginning again in the mid-1920 and extending until the end of her life in 1977. There is also lesser amount of family correspondence and photographs. Curtis' introspections give a perspective on a life's journey that included a troubled marriage and complex family life; a struggle to make a career as a writer; and day-to-day observations of New England life, from Boston elite society to small town New Hampshire. The collection contains a large amount of material related to Curtis' writings, both published and unpublished. It includes research, correspondence with publishers, drafts, fan mail, reviews, and publications, which ranged from books that were well-received by scholarly audiences to pulp pieces in confessional magazines. In addition to books and articles, the collection contains unpublished poems and stories in which she took up themes of romance, interpersonal drama, and the pastoral alongside the travel narratives and historical vignettes that made up a large amount of her published work. Of interest is research and draft material from an unfinished biography of Josiah Tattnall, whose extensive naval career has not otherwise received scholarly attention.

This collection has not been fully processed and is arranged in four accessions as received from the donor between 1962 and 2011:

• ACCESSION 1 (no accession number)
• ACCESSION 2 (no accession number)
• ACCESSION 3 (No. 03S-77)
• ACCESSION 4 (No. 11S-25)