Clare Ellaline Hope Leighton was an English printmaker who immigrated to the United States in 1939. The Clare Leighton Papers date from the mid-twentieth century and include woodblocks, preparatory prints and drawings, engravings, and correspondence related to Leighton's artistic practice.

The Clare Leighton Papers document Leighton's artistic production, and particularly her illustrations for the book Southern Harvest, published by the Macmillan Company in 1942, and The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, a seven-volume series published by Duke University Press from 1952-1964.

Materials in the collection include printer's proofs, preparatory sketches and prints, sketches, engravings, and a limited amount of correspondence related to the publication of Southern Harvest and to the acquisition of the Clare Leighton Papers.