IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0100 KCLCA Williams, C W S
Held at: King's College London College Archives
Title: WILLIAMS, Charles Walter Stansby (1886-1945)
Date(s): 1937-1946
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: ½ box
Name of creator(s): Williams | Charles Walter Stansby | 1886-1945 | author and poet
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Born in London, 1886; educated at St Albans School and University College, London; joined Oxford University Press as a reader, 1908; remained a member of staff (as a literary advisor) until his death, working mainly in London; published his first book of verse, 1912; a prolific author, he continued to write and lecture until his death, producing anthologies, prefaces, reviews, and over thirty volumes of poetry, plays, literary criticism, fiction, biography and theological argument; associates included C S Lewis, T S Eliot and Dorothy Sayers; member of the Church of England; increasingly devoted his writings, particularly his novels, Arthurian poems, and literary and theological commentaries, to doctrines of romantic love (believing that the romantic approach could reveal objective truth) and the coinherence of all humans; abandoned the traditional form of his early verse; in recognition of two courses of lectures in wartime Oxford, awarded an honorary MA (University of Oxford), 1943; died at Oxford, 1945. See also C S Lewis's preface to Essays presented to Charles Williams (Oxford University Press, London, 1947). Publications: Poetry: The Silver Stair (1912); Poems of Conformity (1917); Divorce (1920); Windows of Night (1925); A Myth of Shakespeare (1929); Heroes and Kings (1930); Three Plays (1931); Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury (the Canterbury Festival play, 1936); Taliessin through Logres (1938); Judgement at Chelmsford (1939); The Region of the Summer Stars (1944). Prose: as editor, A Book of Victorian Narrative Verse (1927); Poetry at Present (1930); War in Heaven (1930); Introduction to Gerard Hopkins's Poems (2nd edition, 1930); Many Dimensions (1931); The Place of the Lion (1931); The Greater Trumps (1932); The English Poetic Mind (1932); Shadows of Ecstasy (1933); Bacon (1933); Reason and Beauty in the Poetic Mind (1933); James I (1934); Rochester (1935); Elizabeth (1936); New Book of English Verse (1935); Descent into Hell (1937); Henry VII (1937); He came down from Heaven (1937); Descent of the Dove (1939); Witchcraft (1941); The Forgiveness of Sins (1942); The Figure of Beatrice (1943); as editor, The Letters of Evelyn Underhill (1943); All Hallows' Eve (1944).
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers of and relating to Charles Walter Stansby Williams, 1937-1946 and undated, including corrected proof of The Region of Summer Stars; typescripts including 'Terror of Light', 'The Working of Porphyry', 'Taliessin in the Rose Garden', and 'Prologue' to a production of The Way of the Cross by Henry Gheon; memorabilia relating to Williams, including three photographs, and obituaries.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Conditions governing access:
Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archive Services, King's College London.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
This collection level description available online and in reading room at King's College London Archives.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The collection was received with printed material deposited in King's College Library by the Charles Williams Society in 1977.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
King's College Library received c30 volumes on English literature on deposit from the Charles Williams Society in 1977. King's College London Archives, KAL/AD6/F82, documents the transfer and includes some biographical information on Williams.
Oxford University, Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts, holds literary papers and letters, 1938-1945 (Refs: Charles Williams papers; MS Eng poet d 187, f 40; MS Eng lett c 433, ff 83-5); two letters from Williams to Walter de la Mare, 1938 (in Walter de la Mare papers); correspondence with R B Montgomery and miscellaneous papers, 1942-1944 (Ref: MS Eng c 3858); letters and poems to Ann Renwick, 1939-1944 (Ref: MS Eng lett d 452); 64 letters to Thelma and Bertram Shuttleworth, 1929-1945 (Ref: MS Eng lett e 136); letter from Williams to Robert Bridges, 1930 (Ref: Dep Bridges 13, f 92). Lambeth Palace Library, London, holds two letters from Williams to G K A Bell, 1932 (Ref: Bell Papers (Religious Drama), volume III). University of Reading Library holds a letter from Williams to Macmillan and Co Ltd, 1934 (in MS1089) and four letters from Williams to R L Megroz, 1935-1940 (in MS1979/97 & 113/1). Cambridge University Library holds two letters between Williams and Francis Meynell, 1934 (in Meynell XX). Leeds, Brotherton Library, Brotherton Collection, holds a sonnet, 'Infinite mountains of the interior mind' (in Wilfrid Wilson Gibson Collection), three letters from Williams to Will Foster, 1936 (in Will Foster Correspondence) and letter of condolence from Williams on the death of Lascelles Abercrombie, 1938. University of Kent at Canterbury Library holds a letter from Williams to Hewlett Johnson, 1936 (Ref: HJ06463). Oxford University Press, Oxford, holds letters from A E Housman to Williams (three items), 1929-1930 (published in The letters of A E Housman, 1971). BBC Written Archives Centre, Reading, holds correspondence between Williams and members of staff at the BBC, 1937-1942 (Ref: Radio contributors. Scriptwriters, file 1). Harvard University, Houghton Library, holds 21 letters to Theodora Bosanquet and literary manuscripts, 1940-1945 (Ref: b MS Eng 1213).
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project. Sources: brief description in King's College London Manuscripts and Private Papers: A Select Guide (1982); Dictionary of National Biography; Who's Who; Location register of twentieth-century English literary manuscripts (1988); National Register of Archives; King's College London Archives, KAL/AD6/F82.
Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2001