A collection of books associated with Ronald W Clark (1916-1987), novelist, biographer and mountaineer. Clark worked as a journalist and war correspondent in the 1930s and 1940s before devoting himself to working as an author. He wrote extensively on a wide range of subjects, including fiction, but is best known for his biographies of 19th- and 20th-century scientists and thinkers, such as Darwin, Einstein, Freud and Bertrand Russell. The initial donation of books to form the collection consisted of 18 volumes of foreign-language editions of Clark's works.

Organisation

The books received in 1988 have been catalogued individually and have the shelfmark 'Clark.'. A further donation of books from 2004 is not yet catalogued.

Acquisition

The collection was donated to the Library in 1988 by Ronald Clark's widow, Elizabeth. Around 1,000 volumes from Clark's working library, mostly 20th-century books, were received by the Library as a donation from Mrs Clark in 2004

Related collections

In 1987 the Library also received the author's papers and his extensive correspondence with scientists in the course of researching his biographies. The manuscripts are held at Acc.9589.