Subseries

This subseries documents the creative vitality of the Pen and Pencil Club and its members' literary and artistic contributions. It contains three scrapbooks of unpublished creations. Comprised of drawings, watercolours, oils, essays, poems and prose writings, these collections cover the club's initial years of existence. The first scrapbook covers the years 1890 to 1892, the second, the years 1892 to 1895, and the third, the year 1896.

The works, inspired by topics imposed on the members at each club meeting, are organized by theme. Each theme generated contributions in a variety of genres. For example, in 1890, the theme of "idleness" produced a collection of illustrations by Otto Reinhold Jacobi, William Brymner, Robert Harris, John Charles Pinhey and William R. Hope, essays by Samuel Edward Dawson, Paul T. Lafleur and Forbes Torrance, and poems by J. Try-Davies, John E. Logan and William McLennan. Other names appear over time, chronicling the contributions of new members who gradually joined the club. In 1892, for example, the theme of "the duel" engendered contributions from original members, like William Brymner, J. Try-Davies and E. B. Brownlow, along with an oil by Edmond Dyonnet, a drawing by Henri Julien and a watercolour by Kenneth Ross MacPherson, all of whom had subsequently joined the club. Since the proposed topics were usually quite broad, creators enjoyed some latitude as to their chosen form and approach. Among the themes used were "spring," "shadow," "wine," "the theatre," "money," "ghosts," "hell," "faith," "strength," "the druid," "the devil," "the coward," and "the misanthrope" Some topics were of an historical nature. For example, under the theme "Champlain," the scrapbook offers a poem by William McLennan on the Order of Good Cheer founded by this explorer at Port-Royal in 1606 and a fragment of an opéra bouffe by J. Try-Davies entitled L'Astrolabe perdu. The theme "Columbus" inspired a watercolour by Edmond Dyonnet and verse by Frederick George Scott and John E. Logan. In 1895, the theme "the veteran" inspired a political story by author William McLennan.

Among the other contributors are Edward Westhead Arthy, Thomas Joseph Workman Burgess, A. J. Glazebrook, William R. Hope, Frank Houghton, Maxime Ingres, J. Macdonald Oxley, C. E. L. Porteous, William Raphael, Norman T. Rielle, Forbes Torrance, W. Townsend, Percy Franklin Woodcock, and Ivan Wotherspoon.