Twentieth-Century Literary Manuscripts: Acquisitions, 1970-1992

Abstract

As a collector, Henry E. Huntington looked to the future as well as to the past. At the time of the founding of the Library in 1919, his purchases of manuscripts, ranging from the Ellesmere Chaucer to Shelley's notebooks, from the several autograph drafts of Thoreau's Walden to the autograph manuscript of Franklin's Autobiography, had already established his collection as a leading repository for the literary heritage of Britain and the United States. But perhaps his decision to gather in the manuscripts and papers of authors who lived and wrote in his own time showed more foresight. The commitment to obtain the archives of contemporary authors continues to be a high priority in the manuscript acquisitions guidelines at the Huntington, and many significant modem literary collections have come to the Library, particularly over the past two decades. These holdings may be less familar than the Huntington's vast collections in the early modem period, even though they represent relatively contemporary figures. Let us review the twentieth-century literary manuscripts acquired between 1970 and 1992, placing them in the context of the collections already held by the Library. The first modem literary archive that came to the Library consists of the papers of Jack London. Acquired principally in 1925, with significant additions through 1983, the archive originally came from London's widow, Charmian, and later from the Jack London Estate (now the Jack London Trust). The archive today numbers more than thirty thousand manuscript drafts, letters, documents, photographs, and ephemeral items, making it by far the largest literary archive in the Library. Over a thousand literary manuscripts encompass almost everything London