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Creator
Clairmont, Claire, 1798-1879
Call number
Pforz MS
Physical description
63 items
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Claire Clairmont manuscript material, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
Repository
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Access to materials
Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.

The manuscript material by Claire Clairmont in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings include: two holograph journals kept during her travels with the Shelleys; holograph notes and essays prepared for E. J. Trelawny, relating to Shelley and Byron; and an effusive book inscription to Captain Edward Silsbee, the Shelley enthusiast. The bulk of the correspondence is from 1847-1856, and includes reflections on her experiences with Byron and the Shelleys, and various matters of family interest. Correspondents include: Lord Byron, English poet; Antonia Clairmont, her sister-in-law; Edward John Trelawny, the writer and adventurer; and over half a dozen others.

Biographical/historical information

Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, commonly known as "Claire," step-sister of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and member of the Shelley circle. An aspiring novelist and writer of significant journals and letters, she spent many years as a governess, and was the mother of Lord Byron's child Allegra.

Scope and arrangement

Administrative information

Custodial history

This guide lists and describes the manuscript materials held by the Pforzheimer Collection that were created by Claire Clairmont. These materials have been acquired throughout the history of the Collection, and are kept at the New York Public Library.

The first Claire Clairmont manuscript materials acquired by the Collection – including her 1818 journal – came from the 1820 sale of the library of the bibliographer and forger Harry Buxton Forman. Over the next seventy years, occasional Clairmont acquisitions were made, most often through auction. In the late 1990's, the Collection acquired the papers of Clairmont's family from her living collateral descendants; these papers contained over twenty items in the hand of Claire Clairmont.

Because the Pforzheimer Collection collects actively, its holdings in Claire Clairmont manuscript material may grow in the future as items become available for acquisition.

Processing information

Processed by Charles Carter and Timothy Gress, 2022.

Related Material

In addition to manuscripts by Claire Clairmont, the Pforzheimer Collection holds many manuscripts relating to Clairmont, including the insurance policy she took out in 1835 in case Percy Florence Shelley should predecease Sir Timothy Shelley (S'ANA 0175); as well as the Clairmont Family Papers, a collection of hundreds of manuscript letters, diaries and documents ranging in date from the mid-eighteenth to the twentieth century (see NYPL Catalog record for Clairmont Family Papers). Also held is a printed copy of her short story "The Pole," a collaboration with her step-sister Mary Shelley. A few scarce Clairmont-related printed secondary sources from late nineteenth-century journals are held, including William Graham's "Chats with Jane Clermont" (1893), and Sir Edward Tyas Cook's "Posthumous Interviews with Jane Clairmont." Most significant modern secondary sources on Clairmont are also available, chief among them the works edited by Marion Stocking: The Journals of Claire Clairmont (1968) and The Clairmont Correspondence (1995). The Collection also holds a few early editions of The Aspern Papers by Henry James, who based his story on Clairmont's dealings with Captain Edward Silsbee over the Shelley papers in her possession.

Across the hall from the Pforzheimer Collection, the Library's Berg Collection holds forty manuscript letters from Mary Shelley written to Clairmont, dated ca. 1842- 1848, copied in the hand of Clairmont's niece Paola, with corrections and additions in Clairmont's own hand.

Note

Many of the manuscripts listed in this guide have been included in Shelley and his Circle, 1773-1822, a multi-volume publication that presents selected manuscripts from the Pforzheimer Collection. Shelley and his Circle provides extensive descriptions of the manuscripts, along with commentary, textual analysis, and some facsimile reproductions. Some items in this guide not yet published in Shelley and his Circle may be included in future volumes of that publication.

Using the collection

Location

Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319

Access to materials

Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.