Ralph Waldo Emerson’s letter to Walt Whitman about Leaves of Grass.

“I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” 

Charlotte Brontë’s handwritten manuscript of Jane Eyre

James Joyce’s handwritten manuscript pages of Ulysses [x]

Isa’s Visit to Oxford (1888). A humorous diary handwritten by Lewis Carroll for Isa Bowman recording events which took place during a visit which Isa made to stay with Carroll in Oxford. [x]

Lewis Carroll’s manuscript of “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground” [x]

“I do not know if ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be ‘the first that ever burst into that silent sea’ — is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.”

J. R. R. Tolkien’s handwritten letter discussing the motivation behind the Lord of the Rings.[x]

“I wrote The Lord of the Rings because I wished ‘to try my hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.”