Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913
- Abstract:
- The Joaquin Miller (1837-1913) Collection of manuscripts and printed books was assembled by Willard Samuel Morse and purchased by the library in 1938. Morse's correspondence and typewritten notebooks concerning the collection are included. Printed matter includes approximately 125 items, either of first or limited editions, many beautifully illustrated, and some with laid-in autographs. Photostats and clippings of newspaper and magazine articles number more than nine hundred pieces, while there are approximately two hundred portraits of Miller between 1859 and 1912. Original manuscripts, letters, and inscribed photographs numbering approximately seventy-five items complete the Miller Collection.
- Extent:
- 12 boxes
- Language:
- Languages represented in the collection: English
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Joaquin Miller collection. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library, Claremont University Consortium.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Manuscript material by Joaquin Miller, consisting of autograph poems, articles, letters, and inscribed photographs, also inserts in extra-illustrated printed books (74 pieces).
Willard Samuel Morse correspondence and notebooks with reference to his building his Joaquin Miller Collection. This includes: letters to and from members of the Miller family, 1912-1938 (22 pieces); in and out letters between Mr. Morse and various publishers, dealers, photographers and other collectors (84 pieces); Morse's loose leaf working-notebooks, type-written (3 vols.).
Printed matter: books, first and limited editions of Miller's works, many of these are inscribed by him and extra-illustrated (by Morse) with insertions of original Miller autograph material (approx. 50 items); articles, poems, letters, stories, and ca. by Joaquin Miller, which appeared from 1857 to 1926 in eighty-three periodicals (approx. 500 items).
Biographical materials on Miller, taken from periodicals and mounted, are arranged chronologically in loose-leaf binders for the period 1871-1944. (An index of the signed articles is included.) (approx. 325 items). Book reviews and notices of Miller's works, also mounted cuttings, are filed individually for the period, 1870-1931, in loose leaf binders (approx. 100 items).
A collection of portraits of Joaquin (many are mounted, but few are dated) is available. Note: care has been taken to try to pin each one down to the probable year, for the period, 1859-1912. (Including duplicates 170 items)
- Biographical / historical:
-
Cincinnatus Hiner (not Heine) Miller, better known by his pen-name, Joaquin Miller, American poet and journalist (1837-1913), was born near Liberty, Indiana.
His father, a Quaker schoolmaster brought the family west in 1852, settling in Oregon, where young Miller received a cursory education. When he was seventeen he set out for California and lived among the Indians and in mining camps. This was a period of highly colored adventuring and lasted until 1858 when he returned to Oregon and completed his education at Columbia: College in Eugene. After an interval as pony-express rider, Miller became a newspaper editor, in Eugene, in 1862 and 1863. It was at this time that he began to write verse. His first volume of poems was published at his own expense in 1868. In 1870, after visiting the eastern states, Miller went to England, posing as a romantic Wild West figure and budding genius. He was lucky enough to be sponsored by Tom Hood and to have his Songs of the Sierras published by Longmans. Overnight he became the "literary lion" of London. He "had it made." A compulsive traveler, Joaquin Miller wrote as he went, profusely--in prose and in verse--describing places visited, the life and character of the people and the political aspects of the time. His wanderings carried him to Europe, up, down and across the United States, to Canada, the Klondike, Mexico, China and Japan.
When the real-estate boom of the late eighties brought new life to the west, Miller returned to California to establish a permanent base. He bought one hundred acres in the hills above Oakland and built a house and guest cottages which he called "The Hights" [sic.] and began to be accepted as one of the California circle of writers which included Ina Coolbrith, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Prentice Mulford, Edmond Clarence Stedman, George Sterling, Jack London, Samuel L. Clemens, and others.
In his later years "the poet of the Sierras" became something of a legend, but his fame was based perhaps more on Joaquin the personality, than on Joaquin the writer of memorable verse.
- Acquisition information:
- The Claremont Colleges acquired the Joaquin Miller Collections from Dawson's Book Shop (Los Angeles) in 1938. This material comprises original manuscripts and letters; rare books, inscribed and extra-illustrated; photographs of the poet; a large body of mounted cuttings and photostats gathered from newspapers and magazines. The collection was meticulously assembled by the well-known collector Willard Samuel Morse.
- Physical location:
- Please consult repository.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Special Collections.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Joaquin Miller collection. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library, Claremont University Consortium.
- Location of this collection:
-
800 N. Dartmouth Ave.Claremont, CA 91711, US
- Contact:
- (909) 607‑3977