Chester Linn Shaver Papers, 1924-1979

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Series I.  Student Years, 1924-1937 (0.6 lin. ft.)

Essays from Shaver's Oberlin College years are part of this series.  Research papers, class notes, diaries (quite modest in research value) and examination bluebooks show his work as an English major at Oberlin College in the 1920s.

Series II.  Academic Teaching Files, 1937-1974 (2.1 lin. ft.)

Contains the correspondence, lecture notes and grades of Chester Shaver while he taught at Oberlin College.  In some cases the lecture notes are accompanied by class exercises and exams that were used in his various English literature classes.  In addition, the Coleridge and Wordsworth slides were assembled for use in his class.  The series is divided in to four subseries: 1. Correspondence (arranged chronologically), 2.  Class Books 3. Lecture Notes and 4. Teaching Slides.

Series III.  Talks and Writings (General), 1927-1979 (2.0 lin. ft.)

Included are copies of articles, talks and reviews written by Shaver as well as a transcription of oral histories interviews he did.  Various drafts of The Early Years are also documented here.  This series is divided into five subseries: 1. Talks, 2. Book Reviews, 3. Articles, 4. Books and 5. Oral History Interviews.

Series IV. Correspondence, Notes and Research Materials Files (General), 1927-1979 (3.0 lin. ft.)

This series contains correspondence, indexes, maps photocopies, photostats and research materials used by Shaver to write his various articles and books.  Several speeches on the Romantics, are also to be found here.  The dates on the folders represent when Shaver did the research and not the time period it was taken from.  Indexes, which were used for researching various Romantics, are also contained in this group.

Series V.  Wordsworth Catalogue Project Files, 1958-1979 (3.5 lin. ft.)

The last series consists of the research materials Shaver created and used for his final project, Wordsworth's Library: A Catalogue (1979, Garland Press).  Included are drafts of his work, along with notations as well as galley proofs from the publisher.  The research material consists of correspondence, photostats, photocopies and notes.  In addition, there is a card catalog documenting his research.  The series is divided into two subseries: 1. Drafts and 2. Correspondence, Notes and Research Materials relating to.

Series VI. Additional Materials Received, 1915-16, 1956, n.d.

This series consists of materials received as a late accretion following the death of Alice Shaver in 2003.  Included are postcards and photographs depicting May Day, Oberlin Prospect School, and the Oberlin High School Pageant, 1915-16, n.d. Also included are two (2) 33.2 pm phonograph records titled "Portrait of Virginia Woolf," 29 August 1956.

Series VII. Slides (personal), 1959, 1962, 1967, 1970-76 (0.2 l.f.)

Contains slides, presumably taken by Shaver, of his colleagues, Oberlin College buildings and monuments, and other Oberlin subjects such as a bicentennial parade, a tornado, Oberlin views, and college reunions.

Chester Linn Shaver, the son of a lawyer, was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on November 23, 1907.  Educated at Oberlin College (A.B., 1928 Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard University (A.M., 1929, Ph.D., 1937), Shaver joined the English Department at Oberlin in 1930, serving as chairman of the department from 1952 to 1955 and from 1964 to 1970.  He married Alice Louise Crafts (A.B. Oberlin, 1936; B.S. Simmons, 1937) on June 14, 1937, and they had two children: Philip Alcott (b. 1938) and Anne Elizabeth (b. 1941), both of whom are Oberlin graduates.

Shaver, who became interested in William Wordsworth when he was an undergraduate at Oberlin in the 1920s, devoted his scholarly life to studying the English poet.  Over four decades Shaver was the eighteenth century English literature specialist in the Department of English.  Like so many of his colleagues, he was of the "old school" where the professor largely lectured from prepared notes.  In love with his subject, Shaver's manner, included an enthusiastic, distilled response to the Romantics.  His interests in English and photography were joined in a frequently used classroom slide presentation on Wordsworth and Coleridge.  He also diligently served on many faculty committees and was the advisor on acquisitions for the Library.

Over the years, Shaver published a number of articles on Wordsworth as well as Byron, Keats and Chaucer.  He also served on the editorial board of the quarterly "The Wordsworth Circle." He undertook a major editing project when he prepared a revised edition of Ernest de Selincourt's The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The Early Years, 1787-1805, published by Oxford University's Clarendon Press in 1967. This volume's importance is in the addition of letters, which were not included in the first edition or any successive editions. Shaver wrote the piece on Wordsworth in the "Encyclopedia International." His research took him to England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Western Germany.

Following the completion of The Early Years, his greatest achievement, he began compiling Wordsworth's Library: A Catalogue.  With the help of his wife, Alice, he created an entire listing of the books that were owned by William Wordsworth and housed at his home, Rydal Mount. The book's scholarly significance is in the correlation between what Wordsworth read and the influence it had on his writing. This connection could not be fully understood previously because published listings of his library were incomplete.

Chester Shaver died of cancer on 2 February 1980 at Elyria Memorial Hospital after several years of illness. Alice Shaver died on December 2, 2003, in Oberlin.