Theodore Goodridge Roberts fonds

MG L12

This finding aid was funded by a grant under the
Canadian Council of Archives Control of Holdings Program


Archives & Special Collections
Harriet Irving Library
University of New Brunswick
P.O. Box 7500
Fredericton, NB  E3B 5H5

March 1999



Table of Contents Series:
  1. Correspondence
  2. Notebooks and manuscripts
  3. Published material
  4. Theodore Goodridge Roberts, personal
  5. George Goodridge Roberts, personal


Theodore Goodridge Roberts fonds [textual record]. -- 1852-[19-?], predominant 1906-[19-?]. -- 57cm of textual records

Biographical sketch: Poet and novelist George Edward Theodore Goodridge Roberts, the youngest child of Emma Wetmore Bliss and George Goodridge Roberts, was born 7 July 1877 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Educated at the Collegiate School and the University of New Brunswick, he contributed verses to both The Independent and The Century while still in his teens. In 1897, at age 19, he became a sub-editor of The Independent, where his brother William Carman Roberts was literary editor.

Roberts's work with The Independent, his sense of duty and his spirit of adventure took him to various parts of the globe. He acted as a special correspondent in Tampa and Cuba during the Spanish American War (1898) and in Newfoundland (1899). By 1900 he had established Newfoundland Magazine and was working as its editor. In November 1903, he married Frances Seymour Allen, the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Allen, and they had 4 children: William Goodridge, Dorothy Mary Gostwick, Theodora Frances Bliss and Loveday who died in infancy. The couple would spend time in Barbados, England, France, Ottawa, Toronto, Fredericton and other parts of Canada. Roberts also served with the Canadian army in France and England during the Great War. His wartime adventures provided material for several novels and for a book of prose, Thirty Canadian V.C.'s 23rd April 1915 to 30th March 1918, published jointly with Robin Richards and Stuart Martin.

A prolific writer of adventure stories and historical romances, Theodore Goodridge Roberts was perhaps better known in England and the United States than in Canada. He published no fewer than 30 novels including, The Red Feathers (1907), Captain Love (1908), Comrades of the Trails (1910), A Cavalier of Virginia : A Romance (1910), The Harbour Master (1913), The Wasp (1914), The Red Pirogue (1924), and The Golden Highlander (1929). In addition, he produced several volumes of poetry, notably, The Leather Bottle (1934); an anthology of verse, Northland Lyrics, with William Carman Roberts and Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald (1899); and contributed numerous stories and poems to Canadian, American and British magazines and periodicals. In 1931 UNB formally recognized his literary talents by awarding him an honorary doctor of literature degree. Thede Roberts died at Digby, Nova Scotia on 24 February 1953.

Sources:
Canadian Men and Women of the Time, 1912
Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1963
 


Scope and content: This fonds documents the literary career of Theodore Goodridge Roberts, and reflects his business dealings with publishers and editors and his service in the Canadian army during the First World War. The fonds also contains 10 documents relating to the professional activities of Canon George Goodridge Roberts, the patriarch of the Roberts family, as well as a holograph poem by his son Goodridge Bliss Roberts, who died prematurely.
 
This fonds consists of 5 series: 1. correspondence, 2. notebooks and manuscripts, 3. published material, 4. Theodore Goodridge Roberts, personal and 5. George Goodridge Roberts, personal.

It includes business and personal correspondence, literary notebooks, a literary agreement, copies of lecture notes on literary subjects, lecture programmes and holograph, typescript and published copies of poems and short stories. It also includes newspaper clippings and biographical information about Theodore Goodridge Roberts and other members of the Roberts family.

Title based on contents of the fonds

Much of this material was deposited in UNB's Bonar Law-Bennett Library by Theodore Goodridge Roberts prior to and in 1946


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Last Update: 1999/05/14