Clement King Shorter was a British journalist and literary critic.
Background
Clement Shorter was born July 19, 1857, at Southwark, in London, the youngest of three boys. The son of Richard and Elizabeth (née Clemenson) Shorter, young Clement attended school from 1863 to 1871 in Downham Market, Norfolk. He was still quite young when his father died in Melbourne, Australia, where he had gone in an attempt to make a better life for his young family.
Education
Once finished with his schooling, Shorter spent four years working for several booksellers and publishers on Paternoster Row in London.
Career
In 1877, he found himself working in the Exchequer and Audit Department at Somerset House, as a low-level clerk. Shorter married twice, first to Dora Sigerson, an Irish poet. In 1920, he remarried, to a woman from Penzance, named Annie Doris Banfield.
In journalism
Shorter"s career in journalism began in 1888, when he began working as a sub-editor for the Penny Illustrated Paper.
At that time, he was also writing for The Star, a weekly column about books By 1890, he had resigned his clerical position at Somerset House, to focus solely on his journalistic endeavors.
An important influence on the English pictorial press, in 1891 he became editor of the Illustrated London News. By 1893, he had founded and edited Sketch.
In 1900, he founded Sphere, which he edited up until his death in 1926.
During this time, Shorter maintained writing his controversial weekly column, "A Literary Letter." He described the content of the two papers he edited during this time (first, The Sphere, and shortly thereafter, The Tatler") as "on more frivolous lines."
As an author, literary critic, and collector
He was an avid collector, particularly focusing on the works of the Brontë sisters. This collecting and research eventually led to some of his most well-known works, including two books about Charlotte Brontë, and two books about the Brontë family. Additionally, he edited Elizabeth Gaskell"s The Life of Charlotte Brontë in 1899.
Shorter"s own works of literary criticism include The Brontës and their Circle (1896), Immortal Memories (1907), The Brontës: Life and Letters (1908), and George Borrow and his Circle (1913).
Shorter also wrote multiple books about Napoleon, two about George Borrow, as well as a volume of addresses and essays. His last published work was C. K. South.: an Autobiography, which was edited by J.M. Bulloch, and published posthumously, in 1927.