Collections : [Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library]

Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library

James Branch Cabell Library
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842003
901 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284-2003
Primary Collecting Areas:
book art, comic arts, university archives, and 20th and 21st century Richmond and Central Virginia history, including African-American, gay and lesbian, and women's activist communities; the visual, literary, and performing arts; and architecture and urban planning
Description:
Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library collects rare and unique research materials documenting 20th and 21st century Richmond and Central Virginia. Our holdings include manuscripts, personal papers, photograph collections, oral histories, and various institutional records. Books and other published materials include nationally significant special collections of book art and comic arts; rare books and periodicals; late 19th and early 20th-century architecture and decorative arts; and Richmond history, imprints, literature and serial publications from the late 20th century to the present. The historical records of VCU and its Monroe Park Campus predecessor, the Richmond Professional Institute, are found here as well.
POC: SCA Staff
Phone: (804) 828-1108
Fax: (804) 828-0151
Start Over Repository Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library Date range 1945 Subjects Correspondence

James Branch Cabell horse figurine collection 4.33 Linear Feet 4 record storage boxes

Cabell, James Branch, 1879-1958

The James Branch Cabell Horse Figurine collection consists of 55 horse figurines, a letter from James Branch Cabell to Stanley West (former Director of University Libraries at University of Florida), and a copy of a letter to Stanley West from the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings papers, held at University of Florida. The premise of this collection is that Cabell began by imagining that the literary characters he had created and the real-life people he wrote about were his friends, and that they had given these horses as gifts. Looking to myth and legend, Cabell next chose names for his horses from legendary steeds whose characteristics made them appropriate to the imagined giver. These descriptions offer a multi-layered set of allusions bringing together myth, history, Cabell's biography, and his published works. The dates the horse figurines were created is unknown, but Cabell stated in his letter to Stanely West that he began this project in 1926. It is unclear when the collection was completed.

  1. Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library

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