A collection of books and manuscripts by and about the British poet laureate John Masefield (1878-1967) was given to the Shain Library by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert Simmons of Stonington, Connecticut in 1982. Mr. Simmons' father, Charles H. Simmons of New York City, corresponded with Masefield and enthusiastically collected his works. The elder Simmons published an important early bibliography of Masefield with Columbia University Press in 1930. That bibliography listed 75 works from 1902, culminating in South and East, published in 1929. John Masefield would continue to produce books, poems, and speeches for another 36 years, numbering over 100 separate published items.

The manuscript collection is comprised of one box, consisting of correspondence, page proofs, newspaper clippings, photographs, and manuscripts. The bulk of the collection is the correspondence of Charles Simmons with John Masefield discussing his bibliography and with his publishers seeking publication history for Masefield's first editions. Simmons' other correspondence concerns the publication of the bibliography and includes drafts to the foreward. There are two manuscript poems, one incomplete and unpublished, and one published, but not in Masefield's own hand and Masefield's search for information on the barque Wanderer. Simmons also collected extensive newspaper clippings documenting Masefield's early career.