“This is a kind of intellectual community. They’re not only inscribing books to one another, but they’re writing notes in the margins, and making corrections and annotations,” he said. “These people really come alive in the pages of these manuscripts and books.”

Hyde Eccles, who died last August, began her collection in the 1940s in collaboration with her first husband, Donald Hyde, a Harvard Law School graduate. According to Morris, Hyde was an equally enthusiastic collector, and soon after their marriage the pair became acquainted with Arthur Houghton ’29, Houghton library’s original benefactor and librarian.

Soon, the Hydes had broken into the circle of American collectors.

Hyde died suddenly in 1966, but his wife continued expanding their library, which according to HCL has swelled to some 5,500 letters and manuscripts; 5,000 prints, drawings and objects; and 4,000 volumes. Although Johnson’s writing are at its center, the collection also includes a multitude of other works, such as a Hamlet quarto and an extensive body of Oscar Wilde materials.

As she expanded the library, Hyde Eccles’ ties to Harvard also strengthened. For 25 years, she served as an active member on several Harvard Board of Overseers’ Committees.

In 1983, she became honorary curator of Eighteenth-Century English literature in the Harvard University Library.

Morris said that Hyde Eccles made her first donation to the University in 1968 when she and Houghton established the Donald Hyde Memorial Room on the second floor of the rare books library.

Hyde Eccles had always intended for the area to house the Johnson collection, said Morris.

“Clearly her plan from the day her husband died was for the collection to come to Harvard, and she followed through with her plan,” Stoneman said.

Much of the remaining Hyde collection was distributed to institutions like the British Library, the National Portrait Gallery and New York’s Pierpont Morgan Library.

Certain items, however, will go to the auction block on April 14 at Christie’s. The proceeds will go to a number of institutions, including HCL.

—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.