C. E. Frazer Clark Jr.'s unparalleled collection of Nathaniel Hawthorne materials shows how much can be achieved by a determined but not wealthy single-author collector. But Clark's activities on behalf of books extend far beyond his own library: he is a bibliographer, a friend of libraries, an enthusiastic lecturer, a generous producer of exhibitions, and a publisher of reference books.

Clark was born in Detroit on 26 August 1925 to C. E. Frazer Clark Sr., an educator, and Lucy Huffman Clark. During World War II he served in the Eighty-seventh Infantry Division and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The skills that subsequently brought him so many bookish acquisitions were demonstrated when he persuaded the German who had captured him to surrender. He graduated in 1951 from Kenyon College, where he was introduced to Hawthorne's writings by Professor Denham Sutcliffe.

While Clark was writing his master's thesis"Nathaniel Hawthorne...