1933-1939. 2 journals with laid in ephemera. Journal 1
by [Manuscript travel diaries]. Clark, Benjamin Schulyer.
1933-1939. 2 journals with laid in ephemera. Journal 1: 8vo, c.250 unlined pages bound in red pebbled cloth with "Notes" gilt-stamped on upper cover; c.200 pages filled with legible ink entries in French. Journal 2: 8vo, 252 lined and numbered pages bound in red, straight-grained cloth with "Record" gilt-stamped on upper cover; 132 pages filled with legible ink entries in English. French driving license and other ephemera laid in inside envelope. Condition: very good with minor rubbing to the cloth bindings and minimal age toning. ยง Personal diaries for the years 1933 and 1939 belonging to Benjamin Schuyler Clark (1908-1993) of Pound Ridge, New York. The diaries are an interesting combination of daily record, European and South Carolina travel journals, extensive reading log, and bird watching notes.Clark was born in Englewood, NJ, attended Harvard, and then spent his career as an investment banker. The diaries reveal a thoughtful young man with a passion for bird-watching, books, and philosophical reflection that clearly stayed with him through life: his obituary in the New York Times on March 24, 1993, records that "A lifelong interest in ornithology and conservation led him to bequeath land to the Pound Ridge Conservancy and the Maine Heritage Trust for Acadia National Park. He also left books to the rare-book collection of Harvard's Houghton Library."The first diary records 1933, the year Clark turned 25, and is written largely in French for practice in the language. Clark notes hours studied at Harvard Law School, the many books bought and read, musical programs attended, as well as diversions such as squash, golf, movies ("King Kong bon"), and social events. In June he finishes his final exam, makes a brief visit home, and then sails to the continent for a tour of Italy, Spain, and France, whereupon the diary (still in French) becomes an enthusiastic and detailed travel journal, logging views, buildings, and artworks as thoroughly as any Baedeker. At the beginning of August he returns to New York via Gibraltar and his reading shifts to courtship dramas: Jane Austin, George Eliot, and R.D. Blackmore. In September, an hour before he meets the father of his beloved and asks for her hand in marriage, he rehearses his speech in his diary. A newspaper clipping containing the engagement announcement is laid in, as is an envelope containing a French driving license with a photograph of Clark and two immigration cards issued for him as a passenger on the S.S. Empress of Japan.The second diary, for 1939, opens in South Carolina, where Clark and his wife Charlotte Condit Lyman (1911-1997) are taking a winter vacation away from their two young children. Charlotte's family had deep business interests in the local textile industry and the town of Lyman, South Carolina, had been renamed after her grandfather, Arthur T. Lyman, in 1927. The couple visit many houses and people from her youth as well as doing a thorough tour of other historic houses, churches, and gardens. Clark also records the results of many bird watching outings. At one point the stench from the Kraft Paper Mill force them to relocate from Yeamans Hall country club to a hotel in Charleston. The diary is interesting as a tourist's checklist, as an ornithological snapshot, and as a psychological portrait of a literary and religious man probing questions of civic duty and ambition in the political environment of the 1930s. The couple return from vacation to family life in New York and the diary ends on April 5th with several lines of musings on Adolf Hitler.The diaries have not been fully transcribed and much detail remains to be discovered, particularly concerning Clark's observations of Europe in 1933 and South Carolina in 1939.
(Inventory #: 126130)