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Published Occasionally by the Friends of the Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720 No. 57 January 1974 February 10th, following a screening that after­ noon of the 1935 film version of Wilson's novel, Ruggles of Red Gap. Born in Oregon, Illinois on May 1st, 1867, Harry Leon Wilson grew up with the smell of print in the small town where his father owned a newspaper, and from an early age learned to set type. He quit school when he was sixteen, having studied shorthand and acquired secre­ tarial skills. His first job, as he recalled it, was in a furniture factory, his wages fifty cents for a ten-hour day! In November, 1884, Wilson served as stenographer first in the Omaha of­ fices of the Union Pacific Railroad, and a year later in the Denver offices. This position he left in December, 1885, to become secretary to Edwin Fowler of the Bancroft History Com­ pany, working for more than a year in Colo­ rado, collecting reminiscences of pioneer set­ "H.L." in igo8 tlers and drumming up subscriptions for the histories being issued by Hubert Howe Ban­ croft. Of this experience Wilson commented: Harry Leon Wilson Papers "That job was my introduction to human "... I FEEL THAT LIFE is a glorious adventure, nature." well worth while," wrote Harry Leon Wilson, During this period of his apprenticeship the famed American humorist and author, on Wilson wrote "The Elusive Dollar Bill," a October 30th, 1931, to his friend Zilpha Riley. short story based on his attempts to obtain a And indeed he lived his life with a zest as great dollar bill for a silver piece in Denver. The as that of many of his characters. Much of this story was accepted for publication in Puck, one life is reflected in his correspondence with such of the foremost humor magazines in the United fellow writers as Mark Twain, Booth Tarking- States, in December, 1886. At this time, too, ton, and H. L. Mencken, which, together with Wilson first met a young girl with the unlikely his manuscripts and other personal papers, has name of Wilbertine Nesselrode Teters, whom been presented to The Bancroft Library by his he was to marry in 1899. children, Charis Wilson of Aptos and Leon Still in the employ of the Bancroft Com­ Wilson of New York. A selection from this pany, Wilson arrived in California in the newly acquired collection will be shown in the summer of 1887 to work on the publication of Library's Exhibition Gallery beginning on Builders of the Commonwealth; he lived at first M in San Francisco, and later in Los Angeles. By ... the finest nose for structure and dialogue I to rework it until his death, and it was pub­ July, 1889, he was back in Omaha, again as ever knew." lished post-humously by his children. Wilson secretary to a Union Pacific official, Chief During this sojourn in Europe Wilson sep­ died quietly in his sleep on June 29th, 1939. Engineer Virgil G. Brogue. In his spare time he arated from Rose O'Neill, the creator of the wrote for Puck, while studying assiduously the "Kewpie Doll," and published an unsuccessful magazine's content for style; he particularly novel, Ewing's Lady, which he himself consid­ Modern Fine Bookbinding admired the work of its prominent editor, ered a distinct failure. Upon his return to the Henry Cuyler Bunner, who, in 1892, offered MORE THAN SEVENTY FRIENDS and their guests United States he roamed the California coast braved a rare Berkeley snowstorm on Thurs­ Wilson a position as assistant editor in New seeking a spot at which to settle, and chose a day, January 3d to attend the reception mark­ York. Wilson's duties consisted of selecting site in the Carmel area, overlooking the Pacific ing the opening of an exhibition of eighty-four jokes, writing stories and editorials under his Ocean. He described his choice to Julian Street: bindings from the collection of Norman H. own name as well as pseudonymously and [Carmel] is touted as a "literary and artistic Strouse of St. Helena. Including fine examples anonymously; with the death of Bunner in colony" and I believe more rejected Mss. of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth- 1896 he assumed the editorship. Meanwhile, in come to its post office than to any other of its century English and American binders, as well 1894 his first collection of stories, Zigzag Tales, size in the country. Naturally it is a hot-bed as bindings specially commissioned by Mr. was published. of gossip and all uncharitableness. Strouse, the exhibition, which will continue Although Wilson found the life of a man- through February 7th, serves to introduce to a about-town in New York exciting for a time Here he met Helen Cooke, daughter of the popular novelist Grace MacGowan Cooke, wider audience an art which is little known (he characterized as a great thrill dining at Del- generally. monico's his first night in the city), ten years whom he married in 1912 when she was but Cobden-Sanderson is represented by several and a divorce later his longing for the West led seventeen, and by whom he had two children, examples, including William Morris' Art and him to write his first novel, The Spenders. The Harry Leon, Jr. and Helen Chans. And it was Socialism and his own The Ideal Book, printed $2000 advance on the book enabled him to quit here he would remain, with the exception of a by the Doves Press and bound for his wife, his job, marry Rose O'Neill, who had illus­ visit to the South Seas in 1923 and, again, after H.L. in ig35 Annie. Among women binders, who occupy trated his novel, and move to Rose's sprawling his separation from Helen, when he lived in out the list of works of substance written in a large part of the exhibition, are Florence fifteen-room house, "Bonniebrook," in the Portland, Oregon. Carmel. Walter, commissioned by Mr. Strouse to bind Ozarks, where he wrote his next three novels. With settlement in Carmel came the novel­ When Wilson returned to Carmel, after The Poems of Ernest Dow son, one of four copies His travels took him to Colorado, and to Salt ist's most productive years: his short stories and writing Lone Tree in Oregon, he led a more or on pure vellum published by Thomas B. Lake City, where he completed research for serials appeared regularly in the Saturday Eve­ less solitary life; his enjoyments were in the Mosher in 1902, and May Morris, whose first The Lions of the Lord, described as the first ning Post and he published a host of novels be­ games of golf and dominoes, in the theater, embroidered binding was accomplished for her legitimate use of Mormon life in fiction. A year ginning with Bunker Bean in 1913. H. L. visits with his friends and excursions to the father's Love is Enough. later, in 1904, he published The Seeker, deemed Mencken hailed Bunker as "a first rate comic Bohemian Grove, and always his writing. To For nine titles there are two or more variant by some critics to be an attack on Christianity; novel" and "genuine satire." Then came Zilpha Riley he commented in 1930: this was followed a year later by The Boss of Ruggles of Red Gap in 1915, the hilarious tale of bindings reflecting different aesthetic responses It has always been necessary to me that I be Little Arcady, a richly nostalgic and humorous the adventures of a British valet in the Amer­ to the same texts; volumes so treated include detached from crowds; that's why I live in evocation of life in a mid western town. ican West. Tarkington appraised it as "a reg'lar Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar, the country by myself. Here I can get far printed by the Kelmscott Press, bound by Wilson's friendship with Booth Tarkington fat Hit." An offshoot of the Ruggles book were enough from the world to reduce it—to the Doves Bindery and by Alfred deSauty, and dates from this time, and in September, 1905, the stories centered around Mrs. Lysander John size of an orange—with the consequent re­ C-S/The Master Craftsman, written by Mr. the two families sailed for Capri; the first draft Pettengill, some of which were assembled and duction of its troubled people, including Strouse and John Dreyfus, printed by The of their jointly-authored play, The Man from published under the title Ma Pettengill in 1919. myself. Adagio Press, and bound by Micheline de Home, was completed in 1906 in Paris. Of his A stint in Hollywood provided the back­ ground for the humorous Merton of the Movies, An automobile accident in June, 1932, at first Bellefroid and by Roger Powell. collaboration with Tarkington, Wilson laugh­ considered unimportant, later affected his eyes ingly asserted: "I did most of the work. In fact, published in 1922, of which Wilson said: Noting that "there are literally hundreds of I think it makes a readable yarn. Not until and sometimes his memory. Although his last men and women working away quietly in I did all of it. ." And at a later date he de­ years were plagued by ill health and compli­ scribed to his son Leon their method of work­ I got into the writing of it did I feel repaid modest home binderies, both here and abroad," for my four-month's sentence served on the cated by financial worries, he kept on writing.
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