A case of conscience | Collections | The Huntington

A case of conscience | Collections | The Huntington

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Fathers & sons
Rare Books
When a young graduate returns home he is accompanied, much to his father and uncle's discomfort, by a strange friend "who doesn't acknowledge any authorities, who doesn't accept a single principle on faith." Turgenev's masterpiece of generational conflict shocked Russian society when it was published in 1862 and continues today to seem as fresh and outspoken as it did to those who first encountered its nihilistic hero.
486628
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The train from Pittsburgh
Rare Books
"To Tom Bridges, the train that is speeding east from Pittsburgh becomes the symbol of his crisis. All the threads of Tom's life connect during the twenty-four hours before he must meet that train. He must face the challenge involved in his promise to a man who is on the train and who has placed his faith and his future in Tom's uncertain hands. He must search his conscience for the answer to another man's strange request. And he must choose between his fascinating, cruel wife and the mistress with whom he might find peace. For Tom Bridges, who has somehow, in the years since the war, strayed from his convictions and lost the capacity for courage and for love that is more than passion, these crucial hours are the summation of all that he has been and all that he has known"--From dust jacket flap.
644288
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Autobiography and journal of James Holt
Manuscripts
The first part of the manuscript is an autobiography recorded by James Holt which covers the years from approximately 1824 until the late 1840s. It recounts his childhood experiences in England, including his time as a printer's apprentice, his religious background, his introduction to Mormonism through one of his printing masters, his disappointment that his family did not share his zeal for the new faith, his receiving word of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith ("massacred by a mob in Carthage Jail...although many false reports had...been circulated, this we felt to be true," he wrote), a copy of his patriarchal blessing, a blessing for Sarah Rostron, parody song lyrics (I am Brave Old Oak), some family genealogy, and an extract from a work on "Apostolical [sic] succession." The second, brief part of the manuscript is a diary kept by Holt while he was living in Salt Lake City in 1853. He writes of training with the Nauvoo Legion (although he was probably already in Utah at the time) and of "suspicious appearances among the Indians" leading a group of mounted men going south to arrest all "strolling Mexicans, Spaniards and other strangers" who may have been supplying the Indians with guns "in exchange for Indian children." The final paragraph of the diary was written in an unknown hand and recounts Holt's death in 1856. Included with the manuscript are notes on the Holt family, a sketch, and two maps.
mssHM 35255
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Juan Ruiz Apodaca letterbooks
Manuscripts
This collection consists of some 145 reports written by Juan José Ruiz de Apodaca, count of Venadito, one of the last viceroys of New Spain. Ruiz de Apodaca prepared them for the Spanish Minster of War. The reports (called cartas, ie, letters in English) are detailed summaries of the Ruiz de Apodaca's work as viceroy and cover his entire time as viceroy (1816-1821). Each report is numbered and begins with a précis of the report; there are also cross references to other reports. The dominant theme of the reports is the Mexican War of Independence. Ruiz discusses troop movements, loyalties of regional authorities, actions throughout Mexico to quell the rebellion. Such accounts are sometime month-to-month and discuss specifically the names of persons involved, eg, Francisco Xavier Mina, the rebel leader; or Joaquín de Arredondo, the Spanish military commander. In addition, Ruiz de Apodaca discusses the impact of the revolutionary war on Mexican society. He also provides such details as list of supplies requisitioned for the government.
mssHM 226
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Juan Bautista Talamantes letter to Fernando de la Toba
Manuscripts
In this letter, Talamantes acknowledges that he has received news of the death of Governor Goycoechea, and that Jose Manuel Ruiz has been named his successor. In Spanish.
mssHM 16593
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Experience with evil
Rare Books
"John Ross Macdonald has four thrillers to his credit, and the word is used advisedly. Between his first, "The moving target," and his fourth, "The ivory grin," he has been called a new Dashiell Hammett, a new Raymond Chandler--take your choice. His latest story shows that he is no one's shadow; a new detective, a new style prove his vigorous individuality. The 'evil' looked like a simple, if unpleasant, case of kidnapping. But the kidnapping was only the outward manifestation of evil, like the eruption of a boil on a fair skin. And Howard Cross, who was morally responsible for the man who drove the boy away, spent the most crowded twenty-four hours of his life digging deeper and deeper to get at the root of the trouble, to justify his faith in the man. The true cause of it all lay buried in the past, overshadowed by the corruption it spawned, like a microscopic germ poisoning the whole body. Howard's hectic search for it seemed to lead to the one course he did not want to travel but he followed it through to a solution which, though completely logical, will surprise the experienced thriller reader"--Dust jacket.
636031