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Guide to the Wallace Irwin papers, ca. 1917-1959
BANC MSS C-H 109
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Collection Title: Wallace Irwin Papers,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1917-1959
Collection Number: BANC MSS C-H 109
Origination: Irwin, Wallace, 1875-1959
Extent:
Number of containers: 3 boxes, 8 cartons
Repository: The
Bancroft Library.
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Abstract: Some letters from family, friends, agents and publishers; manuscripts of short stories, novels, plays, poems, etc.; manuscript
of his unpublished autobiography; clippings; scrapbooks; publishing agreements; photographs and snapshots; drawings; personalia.
Manuscripts of writings of his wife, Laetitia M. Irwin, also included.
Languages Represented:
English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft
Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which
must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Wallace Irwin papers, BANC MSS C-H 109, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Photoprints and drawings transferred to the pictorial collections of The Bancroft Library (BANC PIC 1960.006--B and BANC PIC
1960.007--PIC)
Wallace Irwin -humorist, author and journalist -was born in Oneida, New York, March 15, 1875. When he was five the family
moved to Leadville, Colorado. Both he and his brother Will (who also became a noted author and journalist) attended Stanford
University and there earned reputations that, according to Wallace, "savored of brimstone." Editing two of the campus publications,
Wallace brought down on his head the ire of certain faculty members whom he lampooned in verse. He was expelled, as was Will
previously.
Wallace then went to San Francisco in pursuit of a newspaper career. He worked for a time as a reporter on
The Report, the
News Letter and the
Examiner, and then as editor of the
Overland Monthly. Acting on a suggestion from Gelett Burgess, Irwin amplified some verse he had composed for the
Overland into a series of sonnets written in tough American slang.
The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, begun as a literary prank, was published by Morgan Shepard and Paul Elder in pamphlet form. It enjoyed great popularity and
went through several editions. Moreover, reviewers all over the country praised it.
Like most western authors, Irwin went to New York, and eventually joined the staff of
Collier's. The magazine serialized his famous
Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy, in which the character Hashimura Togo appeared, and so popular did it become that Irwin resigned from the staff in 1909 to
syndicate his series and freelance. From then on he wrote independently, contributing articles and stories to several periodicals
and producing several novels, including
Seed of the Sun (1921),
Lew Tyler's Wives (1923) and
The Julius Caesar Murder Case (1935).
Irwin died in 1959 at his home in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
Mrs. Irwin, the former Laetitia McDonald, and a novelist in her own right, presented a collection of their papers to the Bancroft
Library in 1959, with a few additions in 1960. They include letters from friends, family, agents and publishers, ca. 1917-1959;
manuscripts of their writings (novels, short stories, plays, etc.); the manuscript of Irwin's unpublished autobiography; clippings;
scrapbooks; publishing contracts and agreements; photographs; and drawings. The papers are described in greater detail in
the Key to Arrangement which follows.