THE LITERARY CLUB OF DENVER

The Literary Club of Denver was founded in 1970 by three men who shared an interest in books and book collecting: Maurice Mitchell, Chancellor of the University of Denver, Davis Moore, a Senior Vice President of the First national Bank of Denver, and Arthur Rippey, a partner in Rippey, Henderson and Bucknum, a Denver advertising agency. The named the club after the famous Literary Club founded and presided over by Dr. Johnson in the 1780’s. It is a club without clubhouse, dues or officers (other than a “Scribe” appointed at irregular intervals to maintain the club’s records and send out notices of its meetings).

The Club’s first meeting was held on October 19, 1970, at the home of Davis Moore. Invited to this meeting, in addition to the three founders, were five charter members: Richard Davis, Pierpont Fuller, Thomas Knowles, Melvin Roberts, and David Touff. Over the next two or three years, the Club grew to its present size of twelve members. This number was regarded as optimum from a number of standpoints: it is the greatest number that can be comfortably accommodated by most of the members’ dining rooms, it is the greatest number allowing general conversation and discussion, and it yields a satisfying annual rotation of hosts.

By tradition established by the founders, the Club meets on the third Monday of each month, though this date can be (and on many occasions has been) shifted as required by the host’s travel schedule or other commitment. The usual format of the monthly meetings is a dinner, hosted by each member in turn, following which he delivers a paper on a topic of his choice, literary or otherwise, of general intellectual interest. The original concept of the Club’s founders was that its sphere of interest would be “the field of English literature from Chaucer to the death of Queen Victoria”. However, very early on, reflecting the diversity of the members’ interests, the focus of the Club was expanded to encompass not only literature of whatever nationality or period, but also other, non –literary, fields of interest: history, music and painting, war and the military, religion and philosophy, economics and the social sciences, even mountain climbing and horticulture.

By custom, the host has the prerogative of inviting one or more guests to attend his meeting, and even, on occasion, to present a paper of his own, in the host’s stead. Some notable guests entertained by the Club in the past who have done so include Mr. Frederick Lloyd, General manager of London’s D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, and Mr. David Fleeman, of Pembroke College, Oxford University, a noted Matthew Arnold scholar.

From the start, the membership of the Club has reflected a wide diversity of occupations and interests, and in that respect, too, it follows the example of its eighteenth-century model. (That club included, in addition to authors and literary personages, an actor, a painter, a politician, a historian, and a linguist, among others.) Over time, the criteria for membership in the Literary Club of Denver have evolved to comprise three factors. First, the member should be truly interested in the world of ideas, have a background of scholarship or interest in some educational or professional discipline, and be willing to make the effort to prepare, once a year, a paper that will interest, educate, amuse or otherwise edify his fellow members. Second, so that the Club will not become a joyless discussion group, there should be a personal congeniality among the members, plus (perhaps) a collegiality resulting from common endeavors in the Denver community. And third, in order to ensure a continuing vitality for the Club, the membership should comprise a reasonably broad spectrum of ages. The only stricture regarding membership laid down by the Club is that professional scholars should by and large by avoided, lest by their superior knowledge and scholarship they discourage the free participation of the rest of the membership in discussion. While no formal policy in regard to women as members has ever been voiced, the Club’s membership, to date, has been exclusively male.

In addition to its monthly meetings, the literary Club engages in “field trips” every few years, to various cites in the U.S. and abroad. The membership of the Club has been such that on each of these trips, it has been possible to gain access to, or be given special tours of, places of special interest not normally open to the public, such as private collections of rare books or paintings. The scholarship of the Club’s own members has also been an invaluable factor in these trips. Members’ wives or other companions are included on these trips.

In the course of its nearly five hundred meetings over its forty-year history, the Literary Club of Denver has established for itself an enviable (local) reputation for conviviality and intellectual vigor. Its vitality is attested to by the fact that, in the whole period of its existence to date, the chain of its regular meetings has been broken on only a handful of occasions, usually only when a regularly scheduled meeting coincided with a “field trip”. And meetings are not missed lightly: it is rare for the reason for a member’s absence to be other than travel, illness, or an unavoidable engagement conflict. It is hoped that the Club will perpetuate itself, along the lines that have so successfully brought it to this point, for many years to come.