Collection Summary
Information for Researchers
Administrative Information
Scope and Content Note
Collection Summary
Collection Title: Ambrose Bierce Papers, [ca. 1894-1913]
Collection Number: BANC MSS 75/57 c
Creator:
Bierce, Ambrose, 1842-1914?
Extent:
Number of containers: 8 boxes, 15 volumes
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: Letters written by and to Bierce; MSS, including introduction to Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, some Little Johnny sketches,
an untitled short story and a few poems; clippings of articles and stories, many with holograph inserts, emendations and marginalia,
some used as printer's copy for inclusion in the Collected Works; publishing contracts; royalty statements.
Languages Represented:
English
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
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.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Ambrose Bierce papers, BANC MSS 75/57 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Most of the material in this collection was originally a part of Ambrose Bierce's archives, the papers which he left to his
daughter, Helen Bierce Isgrigg, before he departed for Mexico. The collection was eventually sold to Mrs. Milton E. Getz of Beverly Hills, a private collector, who, in November 1936, sold her library at public auction at the Anderson Galleries in New York. The Bierce archives was thus dispersed, and this segment of the Papers was acquired by the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library of New York, which added a few Bierce items over the years to the collection. In January 1975 The Bancroft Library purchased the papers
from Hamill & Barker of Chicago, acting as agent for the Pforzheimer Library, with funds made available by The Friends of The Bancroft Library and the Theodore R. Meyer Memorial Fund.
Scope and Content Note
The collection consists of letters written to Bierce; file copies of letters written by him; MSS, including the introduction
to
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, some
Little Johnny sketches, an untitled short story and a few poems; clippings of articles and stories, many with holograph inserts, emendations
and marginalia, some used as printer's copy for inclusion in the
Collected Works; publishing contracts; and royalty statements. Housed in eight boxes and fifteen volumes, the papers are described in greater
detail in the Key to Arrangement which follows. A list of the major correspondents represented in the collection follows the
Key.