Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Archive of Letters and Photographs 

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Jun 10, 2016 - Jun 11, 2016

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• Lot Description
  Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Archive of Letters and Photographs 
  
  Lot of 34 ALsS, 1 book of poems (inscribed and signed), 4 signed photos, 4 poems (3 signed), plus miscellaneous items such as a Christmas card, newspaper clippings (at least one signed), most sent to Evelyn Smith.
  
  Charles George Douglas Roberts was born in 1860 near Fredericton, New Brunswick. The family moved to Westcock the following year. The Canadian Maritimes are sparsely populated today, and were even less so in the last century . Young Charles was largely educated by his father, who earned an M.A. and was ordained a priest several years later, and had a vast knowledge of Greek, Latin and French. Charles was able to spend much of his time outside, roaming the wilds of New Brunswick. His poetry and prose came to reflect this connection with “the wild.” Themes of nature permeate both, and he is credited with developing the genre of “animal stories” based on his knowledge of woodland inhabitants. When the family returned to Fredericton in 1873, Charles enrolled in Fredericton Collegiate School from which he graduated in 1876, and enrolled in the University of New Brunswick in the autumn of that year. He graduated in 1879 with honors in mental and moral philosophy and political economy.
  
  His first poems were published in The Canadian Illustrated News in 1878, and Scribner’s in 1879, although his first writings (three articles) had been published in The Colonial Farmer when he was but 12. In 1880 he published his first book, Orion and Other Poems, privately published and for which he had to borrow $300 from George Fenety, who would become his father-in-law before the year was out, when Charles and Mary Isabel Fenety were married on Dec. 29. They would have five children.
  
  After graduation, Charles would become principal of Chatham High School, transferring to York Street School in Fredericton a couple years later. In 1883 he would try his hand in the publishing business as editor of The Week, a short-lived literary magazine. Roberts’ career was even shorter than the periodical, lasting only five months. He spent the next decade teaching at University of King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, but left there when denied a leave of absence. Determined to make a living writing, the following year he published his first novel (The Forge in the Forest), his forth collection of poetry (The Book of the Native), his first book of nature stories (Earth’s Enigmas) and a book of adventure stories for boys (Around the Campfire). He came to realize fairly quickly that the nature stories would be his “bread and butter,” even though he still considered himself primarily a poet, and by this point was making his reputation as the “Father of Canadian Poetry.”
  
  In 1897 Roberts left Canada for New York City in an effort to make a living at free-lance writing. He also left his family, never to return to May’s house, although he continued to send what support he could. He was close to his sons, especially Lloyd (William H.L.), an author in his own right, and Douglas, and communicated regularly with daughter Edith.
  
  In 1907 he moved to Europe – Paris, Munich, London. He enlisted in the British Army in WWI, and after worked for the Canadian War Records Office in London. He returned to Canada in 1925. Throughout his career he was a Canadian nationalist, always promoting his homeland, and seeing the country as more unified than many others did, and as much more than an American satellite. While in New York, one of his jobs was writing text for Canadian guidebooks.
  
  His recognition was extensive. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1893, as well as the U.S. National Institute of Arts and Letters several years later. The Royal Society awarded him the first Lorne Pierce Medal. He became an honorary Sarcee in 1928 in honor of his affiliation with animals in spirit, and given the Indian name Na-Kee-The-Si Ah-kik’-tcha (Chief Great Scrib). In 1935, he was knighted by King George (Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George). Roberts was recognized elsewhere with honorary degrees, and, after his death in 1943, with sculptures and other memorials .
  
  This archive was accumulated by a young woman named Evelyn Smith about whom we know little. The letters give little indication of how she met Roberts, but one of the items is a 3.5 x 5.75 photo of Roberts with an inscription “To Harry J. Smith Merry Christmas & a most fortunate New Year, Sincerely your friend Charles G.D. Roberts.” Across top in another hand “This is Sir Charles G.D. Roberts,” which dates it to 1935 or later. Possibly Evelyn’s father or brother?
  
  Smith had something of a “womanizing” reputation in his later years (particularly after he stopped living with May). Laurel Boone notes:
  
  It may come as a surprise to those who have long accepted – and sometimes enhanced – Roberts’s reputation as a ‘free spirit’ in his dealings with women to find that of all his correspondence his letters to only three women may be truly classed as ’love letters.’ Superficially, the letters to Joan Montgomery and those of Constance Davies Woodrow and Eleanor Williams-Moore resemble each other, in that sets of letters were written in rapid succession and urgently sought replies, and that they were lavishly sprinkled with endearments and professions of passion – displaying at one and the same time the raptures of physical possession and the desire for further possession. In their underlying emphasis, though, the letters are quite different. To put the matter succinctly, Constance Davies Woodrow and Eleanor Williams-Moore are treated as loved objects, whereas Joan Montgomery is treated as a loved person. When writing to Constance Davies Woodrow, Roberts not only is at pains to impress upon her that the fact they write each other letters should be kept from his daughter, Edith, but, as a fellow poet, he does not praise her work with the same fulsomeness that he often bestowed upon many other poets who were acquaintances only. In fact, he has considerable difficulty in composing a preface for her forthcoming volume and apologizes for its brevity when completed. Roberts apparently kept his affair with Eleanor Williams-Moore a secret at her insistence, but when he wants to help her find work, he has to ask her what her qualifications are.[see letter to her dated “Ap 14/32,” p. 418] In his letters to Joan Montgomery, however, he both proclaims how proud he is to have conveyed their relationship to his family and makes jokes about his own infirmities and habits, touching upon the homely matters of daily life in the matter of fact way that two people use who understand each other so well that they do not have to pose as being anything other than what they are. (1989: 15)
  
  The letters to Evelyn Smith seem to be somewhere between these. There seems to be a level of familiarity beyond that implied with the first two women above. He writes her a long letter of recommendation to Dr. Forbes Godfrey in April 1929. “She is just completing her course in Social Service at the University.” He also notes “she is now twenty seven years old.” In a letter to her, he sends a copy of the letter he wrote to Godfrey and writes: ”Here is the letter to Forbes Godfrey. If you don’t’ like it I’ll write you another…” He seems to know a bit about her.
  
  These items date from mid-1926 to about 1935, although most letters before 1932. Most of the letters are filled with “endearments and professions of passion.” For example, one of the earliest (15 Nov 1926): “Canadian Pacific Railway en route / In the mountains, nearing Vancouver” Addressed “My dear, dear Love” and “This is just a line to be posted to you the moment I reach Vancouver to let my darling know of my safe arrival, - & to tell you how I am missing you, longing for you, & thinking & dreaming of you.” Or his Christmas Eve 1927 letter from Vancouver: “My Sweetest & Dearest, Oh so longingly Desired… Oh, Child, how entirely I love you, how tenderly, how passionately! Every side of my nature,… worships you.”
  
  The letters mostly cover (besides these endearments) his schedule, how various talks went, when he will return. Many are from hotels and trains (often apologizing for the shakiness of the letter with the movement of the train). In a letter of 20 Aug. 1928 from Vancouver, he notes that he has returned from the “Portland Convention.” “I had great success there, & put off over all the big changes which I proposed in the organization. I refused the Presidency of the League – told them it must be an American - but accepted the Honorary Presidency. Will tell my Beloved all about it when I come.”
  
  In June 1929 Bliss Carman, Roberts’ cousin (his mother was Emma Wetmore Bliss) and childhood friend, died in New Canaan (New York). There followed several letters revolving around Mary Perry King, a friend and patron of Bliss’s in New York. (12 June 1929) “That Woman, Mrs. King, has been past all belief! She carried her jealousy of Bliss’s kin even into the funeral arrangements!” Mrs. King had Bliss cremated and she held on to the ashes. It took months and the influence of both the Premier of New Brunswick and the Prime Minister of Canada to get his ashes returned to Fredericton, where they were buried and a memorial erected. Roberts expresses his frustration with trying to have Bliss returned to Canada on a couple of occasions.
  
  In several other letters he refers to dental work he is having done, a very personal topic, and describes an automobile accident they had in Lloyd’s car when a truck ran them into a ditch. In November 1930 her address was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Associated Aid Societies. This seems to be “the beginning of the end.” She appears to be “cooling things off” in the relationship, and seeing other men (she may have run to the States to escape). In a letter of 11 Nov. he tells her that he is going to New York City for a couple of days, then leaving for Philadelphia. He will give her the details so she can meet him there. He also goes into what story he will tell her mother! By the end of the month, in the letter dated 27 Nov. he laments: “I want you to be happy; and I want you to do what is best for you, in the long run! I will be an old man in a very few years [he was seventy at this writing], while you will have the best of your life before you!...”
  
  The communication continues, though with fewer and fewer contacts. In May 1931, Evelyn is still in Harrisburg. Roberts writes that he has not been well for three or four weeks, but now feels better than he has in years. He is going to NYC and will send her the details and money to meet him there. He also sent her his latest poem and will read her the “long one” on which he has been working when he sees her in New York.
  
  In a letter dated 23 Jan 1932, he expresses his dismay that she came to Toronto to visit her mother and did not call him while there. He notes that he is trying to get away to New York, “…then I will certainly see you, if at all possible, & if you still want to see me!” By May she is engaged. In a letter dated 16 May 1932, he asks when she is to be married and tries to make arrangements to meet her in July! This also is the first letter without many endearments. The next month, the engagement is broken and Roberts is ecstatic – she is all his again! Apparently they met in Chatauqua, NY in July. In August he writes (with lavish endearments, again) “ I have absolutely nothing to write about, … except how I love you more than ever…”
  
  There appears to be a gap in the letters, since the only other one is 15 May 1934, she is back in Kingston, Ontario. There is an empty envelope postmarked 21 Dec. 1935, likely the one that contained the “Christmas / 35” photograph.
  
  Besides the letters, the lot contains a copy of Roberts’ New Poems {London: Constable and Company Limited, 1919] inscribed on the ffep: To Evelyn M. Smith from her very sincere friend / Charles G.D. Roberts / Aug 18 / 1926. The volume is well-used, with the spine missing and tape holding it together.
  
  The lot features a number of photos, other than the one inscribed to Harry: 4.75 x 6.75 in. photo of Roberts. Inscribed on verso: “To E.M.S. yours ever devotedly C.G.D.R. June 20, 1931.”
  
  5 x 7 in. photo. Inscribed lower margin “To Evelyn Smith from Charles G.D. Roberts Christmas /35.”
  
  3.75 x 6 in. Roberts in Plains headdress, inscribed “To Evelyn Smith from her friend Na-Kee-the-Si Ah-Kee-Tcha.”
  
  In addition to the book, the lot includes other poems:
  
  8.5 x 11 sheet with typed poem, “Presences,” signed below by Charles G.D. Roberts. [Publ. in The Iceberg and Other Poems]
  
  Typed poem, “On the Road,” not signed (with name typed above) [Published in New Poems]
  
  Typed poem “Be Quiet, Wind,” signed at top by Charles G.D. Roberts. [Published in The Iceberg and Other Poems]
  
  Typed poem, “Unsaid,” signed below by Charles G.D. Roberts. [Publ. in The Iceberg and Other Poems]
  
  Accompanied by a Christmas card of Roberts and his dog with manuscript note at top: “To Evelyn – from C.G.D.R. and Laddie.” (his underline); schedule for “Lectures on Canadian Literature” by Dr. Charles G.D. Roberts, University of British Columbia (not dated, but likely 1928, see letter of 4 April); other newspaper photos and articles, not signed. But one newspaper photo has a small note lower left To EMS from CGDR Xmas 1929.The people in the photo are Roberts, Maud Sylvester, Wilson MacDonald and John Elson. The Toronto Daily Star reported in July 1972 (long after Roberts’ death) that Lady Roberts (Joan Montgomery) was emigrating to British Honduras with her 76 pets because food for them was cheaper there. She died in Mexico in November 1989.
  
  References: Adams, John Coldwell. Sir Charles God Damn: The Life of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.
  
  Boone, Laurel, ed. The Collected Letters of Charles G.D. Roberts. Fredericton (New Brunswick): Goose Lane Editions, Ltd., 1989.
  
  Wikipedia: Charles G.D. Roberts, accessed 3 May 2016.
  
  Archives and Special Collections, University of New Brunswick, Roberts Family Chronology (birth and death dates) (Accessed 4 May 2016) 

  Condition

  As expected. Photos often have tack holes, some tape, but overall good.
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