Wilmarth Sheldon “Lefty” Lewis (1895–1979) was a collector devoted to Horace Walpole (1717–1797), creator of Strawberry Hill and one of the greatest of English letter writers. In 1930 Lewis contacted Geoffrey Waldegrave (1905–1995), who was due to inherit the most important collection of Walpoliana then in private hands. Lewis was charming but utterly determined to secure the bulk of the Waldegraves’ holdings for his own collection. This he achieved in 1948, after nearly two decades of friendship with Geoffrey and his wife, Mary. Using the extensive correspondence between Lewis and the Waldegraves preserved in the archives of the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University, it is possible to reveal the full story of the greatest collecting coup of Lewis’s life—how he achieved it, and how the Waldegraves were both prey and treasured friends.
STEPHEN CLARKE is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Liverpool. His most recent book is The Selected Letters of Horace Walpole (2017), which he edited for Everyman’s Library. He is also the curator of the current exhibition at the Lewis Walpole Library, Rescuing Horace Walpole: The Achievement of W.S. Lewis.