Exhibition board relating to Jack Clemo and his connection to A.L. Rowse

Reginald John 'Jack' Clemo (1916-1994) was a poet and novelist who was born in St Austell, Cornwall. As a child he experienced two periods of blindness, and by the age of 19 he had lost almost all of his hearing. He began to write at the end of his schooldays, but for many years his only vehicle for publishing his verse and stories was a local newspaper. In 1948, he published a novel, Wilding Graft, followed by an autobiography Confession of a Rebel, in 1949, and a volume of poetry The Clay Verge in 1951. Further volumes of poetry in 1961 and 1967 furthered his reputation as a poet. By 1955, he was totally blind and, although periodically he was able to faintly hear music, he could no longer recognise speech. He continued to write and publish, with his mother acting as scribe for him, a role which Ruth took over when his mother died. The Marriage of a Rebel was the second volume of Clemo's autobiography and was published in 1980. 

In 1984 the Clemos moved to Weymouth; his second novel, The Shadowed Bed, appeared in 1986. Trips to Venice in 1987 and Florence in 1993 resulted in a final surge of verse and Selected Poems was published in 1988; Approach to Murano in 1993.

Our Clemo collection includes all of his manuscript notebooks and typescripts for prose and poetry, diaries, photographs, reviews, newscuttings and correspondence. Included in his list of correspondents includes Charles Causley who was best man at his wedding.

For a larger view of the exhibition board click on the image to take you through to the image page, then click on it again to view it in a zoomable format.

Further information about the Jack Clemo literary and personal papers can be found on the archives catalogue.

A selection of items from this archive have been digitised and are available to browse via the Open Research Exeter Portal. 

Titles from the library of Jack Clemo can be browsed via the University of Exeter Library catalogue (classmark: Clemo).

The exhibition board relating to Jack Clemo is currently being hosted at Exeter Cathedral until September 2023.