James Merrill's poem "Death Masks" from an issue of the Lawrenceville publication The Lit. The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by a man who sells death masks made from the faces of artists.

A photograph of Peter Tourville, James Merrill's friend from the early 1960s onward, who was "country-lean from outdoor labor, with a gravelly voice and easy laugh, [and] a stoner's squint[.]" Merrill purchased Tourville a small apple orchard, where the two of them spent many quiet weekends together. He is the subject of multi-part poem, "Peter."

A Lawrenceville School class photograph, with James Merrill in the second row on far right. Also pictured is Tony Harwood, in the top row, second from right.

A portrait of James Merrill as a child from the Mary Boatwright Collection of James Merrill Papers.

Portraits of David Jackson and James Merrill by Larry Rivers, an artist, musician and filmmaker who was an early beneficiary of the Ingram Merrill Foundation.

Various drafts of "Days of 1994," the fifth in James Merrill's "Days of" series, completing his homage to Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy. "Days of 1994" revolves around approaching death and what he will leave behind. Included here are five of a total 22 different versions.

Water Street marks a turning point in James Merrill's writing; the book is "local and particular: it calls attention to where, and by implication how, the poet is living." Included here are the covers of two 1962 editions, with inscriptions and an inset poem, and the cover of a 1980 edition.

The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace, first published in 1959, contains poems written over an eight-year period, which "are a collection of symbols and epiphanies drawn from experience but set off from it in an ideal, timeless space, a Switzerland of the imagination." Here we include three book covers as well as collected clippings laid into the inscribed first edition copy donated to Washington University by James Merrill's mother, Hellen Plummer.

During the October 8 and 10, 1979 séances, Merrill finds out about and communicates with the recently deceased Elizabeth Bishop, an esteemed poet who influenced his own work and a close friend.

A homemade Ouija board, one of numerous boards James Merrill and David Jackson employed through the years for their séances. Merrill said they preferred these to the store-bought boards because they allowed for more room for clearer and faster transmission. They used a teacup as a planchette.

James Merrill's bronzed baby shoes.

James Merrill's silver baby cup and spoon from Tiffany & Co.