The John Addington Symonds Project (JASP) aims to investigate the life and work of Victorian scholar and writer John Addington Symonds (1840–1893). Among his many works, Symonds wrote and privately printed two essays: A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883), one of the first modern studies of Ancient Greek sexuality, and A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891), which brought the word “homosexual,” recently coined in German, into English-language print for the very first time. Both essays had a significant influence on the emerging movement for gay rights.

As part of the Classics Research Lab (CRL) at Johns Hopkins University, the John Addington Symonds Project aims to examine Symonds’s studies of classical antiquity and his pioneering work on sexuality. Like other CRL projects, JASP also seeks to provide a model for collaborative research between students and faculty in the humanities.

This collection contains three letters and a photograph associated with John Addington Symonds, a queer English poet and literary critic.

Two letters are written from Symonds to his friend Charles Kains Jackson, dated November 16, 1891 and September 15, 1892. The 1891 letter, of which there is the original letter and a typewritten copy, discusses matters of mutual interest, including Michelangelo, Edward Cracroft Lefroy, The Artist magazine, and Antinous. The 1892 letter extends Symonds's sympathy on the death of Jackson's mother and mentions their recent visit in Falmouth harbour where Jackson was telling him about his "home life with Cecil," a reference to Jackson's cousin Cecil Castle with whom Jackson had been romantically involved.

One letter is written by Robert L. Peters to Donald Weeks on February 28, 1964 about Charles Kains Jackson and John Addington Symonds, asking for information on their work and personal lives.

The cabinet card photograph of Symonds dates from 1886 and shows him sitting backwards on a chair, reading a book and smoking a pipe.