Full Finding Aid

Use & Access

The materials represented in this guide may be accessed through the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College. Rauner Library is located in Webster Hall. The materials must be used on-site and may not leave Rauner Library.

Rauner Special Collections Library is open to the public and in most cases no appointment is necessary. The exception is in the case of materials stored off site for which there may be a delay of up to 48 hours in retrieval. Please consult the Access to Collection statement below or contact Rauner Reference.

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Access to Collection

Unrestricted.

Use Restrictions

Permission from Dartmouth College required for publication or reproduction.

Introduction to the Collection

The papers of Noel Perrin contain personal and professional correspondence, essays, published articles, military records, report cards, news clippings, travel itinerary, speeches, legal contracts and manuscripts including "Dr. Bowdler's Legacy" (1969), "Amateur Sugar Maker" (1972), "Vermont in All Weathers" (1973), "Adventures of Jonathan Corncob" (1976), "First Person Rural" (1978), "Giving Up the Gun" (1979), "Second Person Rural" (1980) and "Third Person Rural" (1983). Lecture notes and other teaching papers from courses taught at Dartmouth College in the English Department and the Environmental Studies Program are also included.

Biography

Edwin Noel Perrin was born September 28, 1927, in New York City. He attended Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, and later studied at Williams College graduating in 1949. Perrin also received a Master of Arts degree in English from Duke University in 1950. He served in the United States Army in Korea from 1951 to 1952, and was awarded the Bronze Star. After his military service he taught English literature at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina from 1956 to 1959. He also studied at Cambridge University in England, where he received an M. Litt. in 1958. Perrin joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1959, as an instructor in English. He was promoted to Assistant Professor of English in 1961, and to Associate Professor of English with tenure in 1966. He became a full Professor in 1970, and then was chairman of the English Department from 1972 to 1975. Perrin specialized in teaching modern poetry, particularly that of Robert Frost. He was a Fulbright professor at Warsaw University in Poland in 1970, and was twice a Guggenheim Fellow, in 1970 and again in 1985. In 1984 Perrin joined Dartmouth's Environmental Studies Program as an Adjunct Professor. Perrin began writing works for a popular audience in 1961 with his first essay collection, "A Passport Secretly Green." His second book, "Dr. Bowdler's Legacy: A History of Expurgated Books in England and America," was published in 1969, and was nominated for the National Book Award. In 1978, he published "First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer," which became so popular that he wrote three sequels that ended with "Last Person Rural" in 1991. Other notable works include "A Reader’s Delight," "Giving up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879," and "Solo: Life with an Electric Car." Perrin was a frequent contributor to a number of publications, including The Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, Publisher's Weekly, The New York Times, Vermont Life, and Country Journal. He died in 2004, at the age of 77.