Collection of manuscript poetry & related ephemera recorded within a bound journal.

No place [Wilmington, Vermont ?]: Unpublished, various dates 1950s - 60s. Manuscript in bound volume. Octavo, 9.5 inches x 6.5 inches, original red cloth with an unrelated printed paper spine label.

Binding lightly faded & soiled, corners bruised, otherwise Very Good. Internally, a bit age toned, otherwise Fine.

Pages 1 through 69, recorded in different inks excepting 4, are hand-numbered, very occasionally dated, with several initialed "L.D.C." presumably written sequentially between the mid to late fifties & early sixties (as suggested primarily by correspondence).

Pages 53 & 54 comprise a poem entitled "Two Graves" which are typed & pasted in.

Page 65 provides a tipped-in TLS on "Old Sturbridge Village" letterhead dated November 26, 1962, signed by editor & author Catherine Fennelly accepting for publication Mrs. Chambers poem, "Covenant," which is supplied in manuscript on the adjacent page.

Page 69 features a tipped-in TLS from August Derleth on his letterhead dated November 17, 1962 accepting three poems for publication in "Hawk & Whippoorwill" which are preceded by their manuscript versions. Laid in, inexplicably, is a TLS (apparently trimmed with no loss of content) on Arkham House letterhead dated October 26, 1959 addressed to Leslie [Nelson] Jennings, signed by Derleth, thanking him for sending a copy of "Keep Darkness." Jennings was a poet & co-editor of Voices, who published Ms. Chambers. "Keep Darkness" is included in Derleth's anthology of works on fantasy and the macabre by living poets (Fire and Sleet and Candlelight, 1961) as are two of Ms. Beers' poems.

Following numerous blank leaves, 44 pages in manuscript provide addresses of publishers & editors (generally one to a page), along with somewhat cryptic annotations regarding acceptance or rejection of submissions. Additionally, apparently at the request of various publishers, two typed versions of a "Bibliography" by Mrs. Chambers, which are not dated, are included, one of which is provided in full below:

"Lorna Beers (Lorna D. Chambers.)
Bibliography. Born in Minnesota, graduate of the University of Minnesota. Have lived about the country where my husband's profession took us. Since May of this year, a permanent resident of Wilmington Vermont. I've published five novels. Three for adults: The Mad Stone, which won an early Avery Hopwood award. Prairie Fires, A Humble Lear. Publisher, Dutton.
Two for young people, The Book of Hugh Flower, a story of the stone masons and the building of medieval churches. The Crystal Cornerstone, a story of the American Revolution. Publisher, Harper. Only this past winter I have tried writing poetry and short stories. A story, The Christening was in the May issue of Yankee, and another, The China Rose is accepted by the Literary Review. I've had poems accepted by Sunspots, The Fawn Light,The Scimitar and Song, Kaleidograph, The Fiddlehead, Yankee, Voices, The Husk, and of course, Lyric."