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Clement K Shorter Archive

Archive Collection: BC MS 20c Shorter

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Clement K Shorter Archive

Level: Collection

Classmark: BC MS 20c Shorter

Creator(s): Shorter, Clement King (1857-1926)()

Date(s): 1893-1927

Language: English

Size and medium: 24 bound vols., 31 boxes, manuscript, typescript, printed.

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8773

Description

Comprises: 31 boxes of correspondence with various people (the largest number of letters are from Edmund Gosse, Matilda Barbara Betham-Edwards, and Augustine Birrell); and bound volumes as follows:


1) Volume of press-cuttings (1893-1909) about Shorter (incl. reviews of his publications, articles about him as a magazine editor, and articles about his wife, Dora Sigerson Shorter, the poet and short-story writer) and articles and stories by him (incl. "Christmas in a German village", a story published in the Christmas number of the 'Penny illustrated paper', 1889), the sources and dates marked in MS by Shorter, the spine of the volume lettered and the first leaf inscribed as follows: "The Egoist: New Version Clement K. Shorter", and inserted also in this volume is a letter from Shorter's former colleagues at the exchequer and audit department at Somerset House, congratulating him on his marriage (to Sigerson), dated July 1896;


Added to collection, July, 2016: 7 letters with various correspondents regarding Roger Casement, 1917-1919.


2) Volume of press-cuttings (1893-1906) about and by Shorter, as the previous item, the spine lettered as follows: "C.K.S. Journalistic Jottings";


3) "Miscellanies C.K.S." (lettered on spine): volume containing issues of 'The Windsor magazine' (Feb 1900), 'The review of reviews' (Feb 1911), 'The young woman' (May 1898), and 'Cassell's family magazine' (Oct 1897, 2 copies) including articles about and by Shorter, as well as about Dora Sigerson Shorter, further press-cuttings (1896-1908) of articles and letters-to-the-editor about and by Shorter, TS leaf from Shorter's notebook about George Meredith, and MS leaf of notes about the Shorter family in the 17c;


4) Volume of press-cuttings (1903-1909) about Frederick Greenwood, the author and newspaper editor (spine lettered "Greenwood Letters"), and dinner invitations, press-cuttings about Greenwood and Thomas Hardy re: whether it was Greenwood or his successor Leslie Stephen as the editor of the 'Cornhill Magazine' who invited Hardy to contribute his novel 'Far from the Madding Crowd' as a serial, and an autograph letter from Edmund Downey to Shorter, as well as autograph letters by Greenwood to Shorter and Hardy re: the same issue;


5) Volume of nine autograph letters from J.M. Barrie to Shorter, 1905-1922;


6) A series of 12 booklets "A Bookman's Hobby: Series I" issued by Shorter for distribution among his friends (these are Edward Clodd's copies), of nine of which twenty copies and of three of which twelve copies were privately printed; inserted are autograph letters to Clodd from Hardy and Shorter;


7) "The Weighing Machine in St. James's Street", 22 ff., and


8) "A Club in St. James's Street", 29 ff., both original and unpublished pieces by Shorter in MS and TS for articles (?) with description of St. James's Street in London;


9) "C.K.S., an autobiography", by Shorter, edited by J. M. Bulloch, published posthumously in 1927 (Edinburgh: privately printed);


10) "Immortal memories" by Shorter (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908);


11) "The Rearing of Cecil Deland", original TS with MS corrections for a novel by Shorter (?) or by Dora Sigerson Shorter, unpublished, 88 ff.;


12) "Reminiscence of Richard Garnett", press-cuttings (1906) of obituaries for Garnett, the writer and keeper of printed books in the British Museum library, 68 letters from Garnett to Shorter (now housed in boxes [and listed in the Letters database]); the volume has Shorter's bookplate by Walter Crane (seated woman);


13) Original MSS by James Stephens: "Charlotte Bronte", MS of an article sent to Shorter for publication in America, 3 pp., signed "March 9th 1916 | James Stephens | The National Gallery | Dublin", with a corrected galley proof of the same, 1 p., and three MS poems by Stephens "From Hawk and Kite" (11 lines), "The Wind" (8 lines), and "The Bridge" (6 lines), sent to Shorter for publication in 'The Sphere' (a weekly newspaper founded by Shorter in 1900, which he edited until his death); inserted are also three related autograph letters from Stephens to Shorter; and


(14-24) Volumes of transcripts of letters by various senders (originals housed in boxes [and listed in the Letters database]).


Additional items listed October 2017:

Two photocopy letters from Sir John Collings Squire to Clement Shorter discussing an edition by Flecher, and Squire's 'The Lily of Malud and Other Poems' [on The New Statesman headed paper, dated 24 & 27 Jul 1917].

Biography or history

Clement K. Shorter, the journalist and magazine editor. For fuller details of his life and achievements see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Provenance

Photocopy letters from Squire to Shorter donated by Peter Bond Esq in Jan 1989. Accession Register no. B22592 - B22593

Access and usage

Access

Access to this material is unrestricted.

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