Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Journal of a residence in Ashantee
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Rare Books
708241a
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Manuscripts
The collection contains J. Goldsborough Bruff's oversize revised version of his journal (c. 1853) which documents his journey across the American plains in 1849 by way of Lassen's Trail. Also included in the collection are 264 drawings of scenes from his overland journey, of various places he visited in California, and of his sea voyage to the Eastern United States via Mexico and Panama. Many of Bruff's drawings are in pencil, but thirty-eight of them were drawn with pastels and are in color.
mssHM 8044
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Manuscripts
This journal consists of lines composed by Joseph Cleary on board the Barque Sarmiento during her voyage from Panama to San Francisco, California. Cleary's voyage is told in twenty-seven eight line stanzas, rhymed A B A B, with a four line chorus after each stanza. While more or less honoring the formal requirements of the poem, he manages to report on the ship, the weather, food, sanitation, officers, crew, lack of water, and his fellow passengers. "The rats which in them got / The rankiest odor up did send / As they did slowly rot...With worms our bread was all alive / Our beef & pork did stink / Though it to eat we still did not starve." Death is a also grim reality, "And most of us are yet alive / Though eight are with the dead." In verse twenty, the crew reaches Honolulu, Hawaii, and remains there until verse twenty-five. "But since the Sandwich Isles we've seen / The time does not seem long / For we much better fed have been...Whilst daily we expect to land / And leave this hateful ship." After the twenty-seven line stanzas, there is a bawdy poem about lice feeding in a mining camp, which is written in mirror image cursive. The next poems are titled, "The Miners Prayer," "Epitaph on a Chinese Grave," and "A description of the view from the western summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains." "Those mighty Nevadas with steep and rugged fronts lifted high their lofty brows: peering the ethereal Regions of snows eternal...Overlooking the western world: which from here Presents to the beholder a scene in All its bearings truly wonderful and Sublime." His description of the mountains is followed by a note about Penn Valley, California, on April 27, 1854, "A Miner's Surprise," "A trip to the summit of a mountain near Coloma, Eldorado [El Dorado] County, California," and a long poem to "My Dear Sister." He addresses his sister, "I look upon Ohio now / As a poor place to be hoe and plow / And poorer still to gather wealth / And worse by far respecting health / I almost dread to venture back / Least some disease my frame should rack." There are also acrostics spelling, "Elisabeth Dickson," "Maptha Dickson," "Mary Meguire," and "Catherine Mulholland." The final poem in this volume is titled, "Woman." "They're always trying to employ / Their time in vanity and prate / Their leisure hours in social joy / To spend is what all women hate."
mssHM 80821
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Manuscripts
This collection contains the papers of Los Angeles author and gay activist Joseph Hansen and includes drafts of published and unpublished work; correspondence; manuscripts of works by some of Hansen's friends, family, and students; professional papers primarily related to publishing; and personal and family papers. The bulk of the material dates from the 1940s through the early 2000s. The collection includes works by Joseph Hansen, which consists of chiefly typescript drafts for most of Hansen's novels (including those published under the pseudonyms Rose Brock and James Colton), poetry, essays and articles, and television and play scripts. While there are some handwritten edits and corrections among the drafts and proofs, the majority do not have annotations. There are also two boxes with copies of various publications, primarily literary magazines and newspapers, containing Hansen's published work. There are two boxes with various manuscripts of work by friends and family of Hansen including poems by FrancEyE, and drafts of novels: In Search of Truth by Chris Gugas and People Talking to Themselves by Armine D. Mackenzie. There is also a ledger and manuscript by Belle Race from the early 1900s, who presumably was a relative of Hansen's wife Jane Bancroft Hansen. The correspondence in the collection includes both personal and professional letters sent and received by Hansen. There is a sizable amount of correspondence between Hansen and his publishers and agents including Collier Associates, Countryman Press; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; Harper & Row; the John Johnson Agency; Joan Kahn; and Penguin Books. In addition, there are also five folders of rejection letters sent to Hansen. Within Hansen's personal correspondence, notable correspondents include: British author Beryl Bainbridge, who befriended Hansen in the 1970s while Hansen was living in London; English composer and musician Richard Rodney Bennett; the publisher Brandon House, who put out Hansen's Colton books; gay filmmaker Arch Brown, who collaborated with Hansen on a playscript of Hansen's novel Backtrack, which was not produced; American crime fiction writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis, with whom Hansen corresponded regularly; poet, and girlfriend of Charles Bukowski, FrancEyE (aka Frances Dean Smith); American author Philip Gambone who published a profile of Hansen in Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers; poet and literary critic Diana Gioia; gay activist William "Billy" Glover, who worked at One magazine and after helped form the Homosexual Information Center in 1968; poet and literary critic William Harry Harding; gay activist Ross Ingersoll; poet Bill Mohr; critic Terry Teachout, who reviewed some of Hansen's novels; and crime writer Charles Ray Willeford. There are also insignificant pieces of correspondence from well-known individuals: James Blish, James Broughton, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, George Plimpton, Julian Symons, and Andrew Vachss. Professional and personal materials include a variety of materials related to many different parts of Hansen's life, including business, publishing, and financial documents; miscellaneous ephemera, research materials; family papers, with writings and papers by Jane Bancroft Hansen as well as the Hansen's only child Daniel Hansen; press features on Hansen and reviews of his publications; materials related to Hansen's KFI radio program "Stranger from the Sea"; documents related to Hansen's teaching, chiefly at the UCLA extension school; miscellaneous materials related to Hansen's involvement with the gay community such as the Gay Community Services Center and the homosexual Information Center; and some materials related to his work on a 1970 issue of the literary magazine Beyond Baroque. The collection contains one box of photographs with images of Hansen throughout his life, as well as family members including Jane Bancroft Hansen and Daniel Hansen, and some friends and residences. The collection also contains approximately 70 drawings on paper presumably by Jane Hansen from the 1960s, of which many may have been created as part of art class.
mssHansen