Manuscripts

John Muir letters

Description: The collection consists of letters, including 22 autograph letters, from 1902 to 1913, from Muir to his daughter, Helen Muir Funk. There is also correspondence with Enos Abijah Mills, J. Marshall Watkins, and the John Muir Association, and photocopies of Muir's Thousand mile journey (FAC 624).
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1902-1955
Call number: mssMuir
Creator: Muir, John (1838-1914)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of J. Marshall Watkins, May 1961.; Gift of Helen Muir, April 1964.
Restrictions: Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.
Rights: Literary rights to all unpublished works of John Muir, including correspondence, manuscripts and drawings, are held by the Muir-Hanna Trust. Researchers with questions about obtaining permission to publish or quote from Muir manuscripts should contact the Muir-Hanna Trust through its administrator, Ross DeLipkau: Hill, DeLipkau and Erwin, P.O. Box 2790, Reno, NV 89505.; The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.
Associated people: Funk, Helen Muir, (1866-1964.); Mills, Enos A., (1870-1922.); Watkins, J. Marshall.
Associated organization: John Muir Association.
Find out more: View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab); View in the Online Archive of California(Opens in new tab)

John Muir letters

Manuscripts

The collection consists of letters, including 22 autograph letters, from 1902 to 1913, from Muir to his daughter, Helen Muir Funk. There is also correspondence with Enos Abijah Mills, J. Marshall Watkins, and the John Muir Association, and photocopies of Muir's Thousand mile journey (mssFAC 624).

mssMuir

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Muir family papers

Manuscripts

This collection contains correspondence and ephemera from John Muir and his family. The family members represented in the collection are John Muir, his parents, his seven siblings, two of his sisters-in-law and two of his nieces. The letters largely deal with family affairs, and give a detailed account of the family's daily life. Many of the letters mention John and his activities at different points in his life. They often discuss Muir's location, his publications and the family's trips to California to see him, his wife Louie, and their two daughters, Wanda and Helen. Several of John Muir's letters are written from Yosemite Valley; these letters give detailed accounts of Muir's activities at Yosemite as well as physical descriptions of the valley. Correspondence: All but one letter (John Muir to Anne Gilrye Muir, HM 57467) are addressed to Daniel H. Muir Jr., or his wife Emma Kinaston Muir (eleven letters are addressed to Daniel H. Muir, Jr. and Emma Kinaston Muir). One-third of the letters are written by John Muir's mother Anne Gilrye Muir. One letter is written by E. C. Love, a friend of the Muir family. The correspondence includes the following members of the Muir family (list shows relation to John Muir and number of items written by each family member): Joanna Muir Brown, sister (6); Anna G. Galloway, niece (1); Sarah Muir Galloway, sister (16); Mary Muir Hand, sister (7); Anna Muir, sister (4); Anne Gilrye Muir, mother (68); Daniel Muir, father (6); Daniel H. Muir, Jr., brother (1); David G. Muir, brother (9); John Muir (28); Katie Muir, sister-in-law (1); Margaret Muir Reid, sister (1); and Anna Reid Waterman, niece (1). Ephemera: The ephemera consists of six folders and contains calling cards, a Christmas card, envelopes, wedding invitations, mementos from John Muir, and miscellaneous printed ephemera, including newspaper clippings.

mssHM 57349-57497

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Extra-illustrated set of The Writings of John Muir

Rare Books

This collection consists of an extra-illustrated set of the 10-volume The Writings of John Muir : Manuscript Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916-1924), identified as set number 126 of 750 (of the standard edition). Tipped into each volume is: A manuscript fragment from a draft of "The Glacier Meadow," chapter 7 in The Mountains of California in John Muir's hand. A hand-colored photogravure frontispiece of one of the illustrations within the volume. 26 to 27 additional platinum prints, each preceded by a page containing a typescript title and corresponding quotation from the text. The added images (in addition to the 114 photogravure plates originally included with the set) include 260 platinum photographic prints chiefly by photographer Herbert W. Gleason (1855-1937), which correspond to the text. Images chiefly consist of landscapes related to Muir's travels and writings about the American West, including Alaska, California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington; as well as close-up photographs of animals and plants. While most of the images depict natural scenery, there are a few photographs of Muir or specific buildings or individuals related to his life, as well as two photographs each depicting an unidentified man and woman: "Agate Stumps in Yellowstone Park" (Volume 6, facing page 68) and "An Artesian Well. [Part of the water supply of the city of Ogden, Utah]" (volume 8, facing page 162). The compiler of this extra-illustrated set is unidentified but may have been Gleason. There are similarities between some of the typescript titles and the original envelope titles created by Gleason for his negatives in the Robbins-Mills Collection of Herbert Wendell Gleason Photographic Negatives at the Concord Free Public Library. Each copyright page has the printed text "Edition Limited to Seven Hundred and Fifty Copies This is Number 126." All of the volumes are stamped on the verso of flyleaf, "Bound at the Riverside Press."

646274

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The Life and Letters of John Muir: Volume II by William Frederic Badè (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company)

Rare Books

Manuscript specimen Fragment of page 7 from a draft of chapter 7, page 146: "forest shadows upon a delightful purple level, lying smooth + free in the light like a lake. This is a glacier meadow. It is about a mile + a half long by a quarter of a mile wide. The trees come pressing forward all around in close serried ranks + plant their feet exactly on its margin, holding them-" Added images • Color frontispiece (same image as facing page 360): Wapama Falls (1700 feet) in Hetch-Hetchy Valley • Facing page 12: "Sand Embroidery." • Facing page 28: Merced Lake. [Formerly Shadow Lake] • Facing page 56: Early Snow in Yosemite. • Facing page 80: A Sierra Forest. • Facing page 88: Canyon of the South Fork of Kings River. • Facing page 100b: Lake Tahoe. • Facing page 104: On the Nevada Desert. • Facing page 110: In the Southern Utah Desert. • Facing page 144: Victoria from the Harbor. • Facing page 150: Approaching Sitka through Peril Strait. • Facing page 152: Ft. Wrangell. • Facing page 160: At the Foot of Muir Glacier. • Facing page 176: Arctic Grouse. • Facing page 200: Kings River Canyon. • Facing page 232: Mount Rainier. • Facing page 266: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord. • Facing page 268: On Professor Sargent's Grounds, Brookline, Mass. • Facing page 304: Along Paradise Creek in the Canadian Rockies, between Banff and Glacier. • Facing page 310: Along the Crest of the Blue Ridge in the Alleghany Mountains, above Luray. • Facing page 322: Father Duncan. • Facing page 324: Sitka Harbor. • Facing page 326: Mountain View above Yakutat Bay. • Facing page 352: Mr. Muir on a Sierra Club Outing. • Facing page 382: Mr. Muir at his Martinez Home in October, 1913. • Facing page 410: President Roosevelt and John Muir, with party, at the foot of a Giant Sequoia. • Facing page 422: A Smooth-barked Eucalyptus by Mr. Muir's Grave on the Alhambra Ranch.

646274

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John Muir letter to [Clara] Barrus

Manuscripts

John Muir wrote this letter to Clara Barrus, a physician with the state psychiatric hospital in Middleton, New York, from Martinez, California on September 23, 1909. In this letter, Muir writes that he is "glad to hear my little books are considered worth reading and have helped to incite others to go forth and see God's handiwork for themselves." He also mentions a letter from John Burroughs, an American naturalist and nature essayist, in which Burroughs has finished at least one article about the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Muir also hopes that Burroughs will next write about Yosemite. He closes the letter about the health of a woman named Helen, who is doing well.

mssHM 80949

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John Muir letter to Katharine Putnam Hooker

Manuscripts

Farewell letter to Katherine Hooker from John Muir stating that he is leaving Philadelphia for the Amazon, "all alone as usual" on August 15, 1911 and is well but feeling tired as he has been working from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for weeks finishing the Yosemite book. Muir hopes to get a rest on the trip to the "great hot river." He says she may write him goodbye at the above address and closes with: "Heaven's peace be yours dear Katherine, so devoutely prays, Your very friend, John Muir."

mssHM 31152

John Muir letters

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John Muir letters

Muir family papers

Extra-illustrated set of The Writings of John Muir

The Life and Letters of John Muir: Volume II by William Frederic Badè (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company)

John Muir letter to [Clara] Barrus

John Muir letter to Katharine Putnam Hooker