Builders of Monuments

"Happy are the dead and their biographers who have left materials for the building of their monument." Thus observed Alexander Tremaine Wright to William John Carlton. Happily too, the Wright portion of their 1909-1915 correspondence has survived to be donated to Special Collections by Nicholas B. Scheetz C'74. Wright's letters reveal that they shared a grand passion - the history and bibliography of shorthand. The correspondence gives a glimpse into the small English fraternity of researchers active in the field at the beginning of the century. Throughout the letters, references are made to significant figures in shorthand's history, among them Jeremiah Rich, William Addy, Julius Ensign Rockwell, Christian Johnen, John Willis and Lawrence Steel; auctions are discussed, publications commented on, and even researches detailed.

Years later, William John Carlton (1886-1960) gained renown for his extensive collection of some 15,000 works in shorthand, which rivaled in breadth and depth the New York Public Library's collection and that of the Stenographisches Landesamt in Dresden. A long article in the Times Literary Supplement describes its generous donation to the University of London in 1960. Carlton was also a noted Dickensian. His research and writings, particularly on Charles Dickens' youth and early career as a shorthand reporter in the courts of London, illuminate the least known phases of that author's life. Both Carlton's Charles Dickens, Shorthand Writer: The 'Prentice Days of a Master Craftsman (1926) and Links with Dickens in the Isle of Man (1958) are found in the library's famed Ziegler-Dickens Collection. Moreover, the correspondence is a happy complement to the large collection of shorthand books formed by the late Adolph Gerstenzang, donated to Special Collections by his nephew, Doug Gersten.