This collection contains the call numbers Y.d.1417 (1-2011).

The first part of this collection is comprised of autograph letters signed to Walters from various Shakespeare enthusiasts, scholars, Baconians, publishers, and printers. These correspondents include William Salt Brassington (1859-1939), Frederic Henry Fisher, George Frisbee, Granville George Greenwood (1850-1928), William Jaggard (1868-1947), Horace Nickson, Cecil Palmer, John Lewis Alexander Paton (1863-1946), Richard Savage, Bernard Rowland Ward (1863-1933), Sir William Henry Bailey (1838-1913), and William S. Smedley.

The bulk of the collection consists of manuscript drafts and printed essays by Walters on Shakespeare. There are also many printed programs, broadside advertisements, and manuscript drafts pertaining to Walters' lectures on Shakespeare (particularly those given in the Manchester area). Also in the collection are Walters' autograph notes, scrapbooks, and an abundance of newspaper and magazine clippings. Topics include the Shakespeare-Bacon theory (including the Northumberland manuscript and Baconian cipher), Edward De Vere, critical interpretations of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, forgeries, The Shakespeare Tercentenary, Shakespeare's "dark period," Shakespeare and the stage, and the First Folio. Much of the collection sheds light on a network of English literary and cultural societies spreading from Knutsford to Nottingham (see Y.d.1417 (1472-1501) in particular).