Harriet Grote Letters

Five letters from Harriet Grote to Georgiana Malcolm, concerning a MSS by Malcolm and her quest to obtain a publisher.

Harriet Grote ne Lewin, biographer and wife of the historian George Grote (1794-1871), was born near Southampton in July 1792. She married George Grote in 1820. During their engagement Harriet studied hard so that she could share Grote's intellectual interests. Mrs Grote devoted herself to managing her husband's life, both practically and socially. They lived mainly in London and Surrey. Harriet Grote was always a diligent keeper of diaries and notebooks, as well as a good letterwriter, and having accumulated an abundance of materials, began to write a biographical account of her husband while he was still alive. This work was rapidly pushed forward on his death in 1871, and she herself had already reached her eightieth year, when it was published in 1873 as 'The personal life of George Grote'. She had printed and published other material previously in her lifetime. She died at Shiere in Surrey, aged eighty-seven.

Georgiana Charlotte Frances Malcolm ne Harcourt (1807-29 Oct 1886) was the daughter of Edward Harcourt (1757-1847), Archbishop of York. Her correspondence has been published, but she is primarily known for the novels of Gustav Freytag and the theological works she translated from German originals. Her husband, Major General Malcolm, had a distinguished career in the British army.

Open

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Deposited with UCL by Winifrid Myers in 1969.

Collection level description

University College London Special Collections also holds portions of the manuscript of Grote's 'History of Greece', c1856 (Ref: MS ADD 107); correspondence of George Grote, Harriet Grote (ne Lewin) and Jessie Lewin, 1861-1879 (Ref: MS ADD 120); five letters of Harriet Grote to Mrs Georgiana Malcolm, 1857-1862 and undated (Ref: MS ADD 174); correspondence and diaries of George and Harriet Grote and the Lewin family, 1819-1887 (Ref: MS ADD 266); correspondence of George and Harriet Grote with George Croom Robertson, 1860s-1870s (Ref: MS ADD 88); an undated letter from George Grote to Joseph Parkes and two from Harriet Grote, 1853, [1854] (Ref: PARKES); letters of George Grote concerning University College London business, 1826-[1850], 1870, and a letter from Harriet Grote concerning her gift to the Library [1873] (Ref: COLLEGE CORRESPONDENCE); miscellaneous correspondence of George and Harriet Grote (Ref: MS MISC 2G, 3G, 3T).