Hesketh Pearson published his first full-length biography,
He was born Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson on 20 February 1887 in Worcestershire, England, to Thomas Henry Gibbons Pearson, a farmer, and the former Amy Mary Constance Biggs. Instead of pursuing his education beyond grammar school, he worked at a series of jobs and traveled through North and South America. In 1911 his passion for Shakespeare and the theater led him to try his hand at acting, and he joined the company of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, playing minor roles. He also acted with the companies of Harley Granville-Barker and Sir George Alexander.
After three years' service during World War I with the Army Service Corps in the Middle East, during which he was mentioned in dispatches and earned the Military Cross, Pearson left with the rank of captain and returned to the stage. He began writing short stories and articles and published his first book,
In 1912 he married the actress Gladys Rosalind Bardili, and they had a son, Henry Car Hesketh Pearson, who was killed in 1939 in the Spanish Civil War. Gladys died in 1951 and the same year he married Dorothy Joyce Ryder, who survived him.
A mutual interest in Frank Harris led to his meeting Hugh Kingsmill Lunn in 1921, and the two formed a close friendship. Lunn dropped his last name when he began publishing biographies and novels and was known both professionally and privately as Hugh Kingsmill. Together they wrote three books of a unique mix of travel writing, reminiscence, and literary gossip. Kingsmill died in 1949.
Throughout his career Pearson made the acquaintance of many celebrated writers and performers, including Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris, Alfred Douglas, Max Beerbohm, Sir Francis Galton, Winston Churchill, P. G. Wodehouse, and G. K. Chesterton.
Pearson died 9 April 1964.
Michael Holroyd, Pearson's heir and literary executor, was born in London on 27 August 1935. After work in a solicitors' firm and service in the army, he made the acquaintance of the novelist William Alexander Gerhardie, who encouraged him to produce his first biography,
His next book was the highly successful
Jones, A. R.
Pearson, Hesketh.
The Hesketh Pearson Papers document the career and personal life of the biographer and author of short stories, dramatic works, and travel books through correspondence, manuscripts, proofs, photographs, clippings, diaries, and notebooks. The papers were formerly in the possession of biographer Michael Holroyd, who served as Pearson's literary executor and, after the death of Pearson's widow Joyce in 1975, his heir; consequently the collection also includes papers and correspondence generated by Holroyd in these capacities. The papers are arranged in five series: Series I. Works, 1894-1982 (8 boxes); Series II. Correspondence, 1910-1963 (2 boxes); Series III. Personal, 1789-1959 (7 folders); Series IV. Joyce Pearson, 1964-1975 (2 folders); and Series V. Michael Holroyd, 1926-2001 (21 folders).
The Pearson papers throw light on the working processes of a biographer: how subjects are chosen or abandoned, where and how biographical information is sought, negotiations with publishers, and the difficulties that can arise in dealing with subjects or their heirs. In addition, Pearson's correspondence and diaries are replete with opinions on literary, political, and religious topics as well as information on the subjects of his books, details of his working methods, information about his and his correspondents' personal lives, and discussions of well-known figures living and dead, particularly in the fields of literature and theater.
The collection contains significant amounts of correspondence and research material concerning several of the subjects of Pearson's biographies: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W. S. Gilbert, Frank Harris, Sir Walter Scott, Beerbohm Tree, and Oscar Wilde. Among the correspondents are A. P. Buckland-Plummer, Adrian Conan Doyle, Norman Charles Hunter, Hugh Kingsmill, Arthur Leonard Ross, Robert Sherard, and P. G. Wodehouse.
This series is divided into two subseries: A. Books, 1894, 1920-1982, and B. Other Works, 1903-1959. The subseries dealing with his book-length works is arranged alphabetically by book title, reflecting the way many of his papers were originally filed, including those letters and clippings he frequently placed inside his personal copies of his books; the Correspondence series may also contain material on the same subjects, as Pearson's filing was not always consistent. Within each title materials are arranged in this sequence: manuscripts, correspondence, research materials, page proofs (all of which bear corrections in Pearson's handwriting), illustrations, and clippings. Authors of correspondence are identified in the Index of Correspondents in this guide.
Most of Pearson's books are represented by at least some materials in the collection, beginning with his first full-length biography,
The Other Works subseries contains mostly shorter works written by Pearson: articles, book reviews, diaries, dramatic works, juvenilia, a notebook, and the manuscripts or page proofs of short stories and talks. All items are arranged either alphabetically by title or chronologically if untitled. The juvenilia are two volumes of a "magazine" the teenaged Pearson wrote for his family, primarily containing brief lives of famous persons. The diaries, covering 1923-1924 and 1940-1959, are a rich source of information about Pearson's extremely wide circle of friends in the literary world. The diaries for 1940-1941 were supplemented by Pearson with indexes of persons mentioned in their pages. The last actual diary entry is on 6 August 1945, followed by several dated notes made by Pearson as he reread the volumes over the next few years.
The correspondence is arranged in alphabetical order by correspondent, with incoming and outgoing letters interfiled. A highlight of the papers is Pearson's lively correspondence (1921-1949) with his close friend and coauthor Hugh Kingsmill. Their letters, numbering over 700, are not complete: there is no correspondence from Kingsmill for the year 1946, and Pearson's letters between 15 August 1940 and 25 January 1948 are missing. Occasionally they enclose correspondence from other writers with their letters; these third-party letters have been indexed only when they are originals and not transcriptions. Other correspondents well represented in this series are the playwright Norman Hunter, Shaw's friend Eleanor O'Connell, Harris's former associate A. P. Buckland-Plummer, Harris's literary executor Arthur Leonard Ross, Wilde biographer Robert Sherard, Scott scholar Percy R. Stevenson, and writer P. G. Wodehouse. The Wodehouse folder also contains Pearson's 1947 correspondence with Frank Soskice of the Royal Courts of Justice in an effort to determine if, on Wodehouse's return to England, he would be prosecuted for having participated in German radio broadcasts during World War II. Although Pearson was the biographer and close friend of Shaw and knew Harris well, no original letters from either are in this collection.
Among the personal items in the collection are the correspondence of Pearson's mother's family (including the Biggs, Bree, and Moilliet families) from 1789 to 1912 and arranged chronologically; records, correspondence, medals, and a photograph album containing about 225 photographs documenting his military service in Mesopotamia during World War I; acting scripts for the Forum scene in
Most of the letters addressed to Pearson's widow Joyce are letters of condolence upon her husband's death in 1964. There are also a few letters written to and from friends and family before her death in 1975. Everything in this series is arranged alphabetically by correspondent.
In this series Holroyd's works are grouped together and arranged alphabetically, followed by a small number of business papers mostly consisting of book contracts, his correspondence arranged alphabetically with incoming and outgoing letters interfiled (including several letters from Pearson), and finally some third-party works and correspondence and a small amount of unidentified materials. The bulk of Holroyd's papers concern his biography of Kingsmill, written with guidance from Pearson; his involvement with the publication of new editions of Pearson's works; and his own articles on Pearson and Kingsmill. The chronologically arranged correspondence associated with the writing of
Purchase, 2003 (R15158)
Open for research
Richard Workman, 2003
Elsewhere in the Ransom Center (in the George Bernard Shaw Collection) is the typescript of Pearson's biography of Shaw,
Letters from Pearson to his publishers and to other correspondents such as Shaw are housed at the University of Bristol Library and at Cornell University. Handwritten manuscripts of many of his books are at Northwestern University Library.
The purchase also included almost one hundred books, about two-thirds of which are by Pearson and the rest primarily by Hugh Kingsmill. Many of Pearson's copies of his own books bear his handwritten emendations to the text, which may or may not have been incorporated into subsequent editions. All books were transferred to the Ransom Center Library.
In addition, about forty theater programs from 1880 to 1932, mostly documenting Pearson's career as an actor, were transferred to the Performing Arts Collection at the Ransom Center; a detailed listing is available on request.