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Guide to the Hugh Fox Papers
Mss 35
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Table of contents
Title: Hugh Fox Papers,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1960s
Collection Number: Mss 35
Creator:
Fox, Hugh, 1932-
Extent:
.4 linear feet
(1 half-size document box and 1 thin oversize box)
Repository:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Department of Special Collections
Santa Barbara, California 93106-9010
Physical Location: Del Sur
Language:
English.
None.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
Hugh Fox Papers. Mss 35. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Gift of H. Taylor, 1969.
Hugh Fox was born into an Irish-Catholic family in Chicago in 1932. He became interested in literature and the arts at a young
age, and attended Chicago's Jesuit college, Loyola University. After receiving a master's degree in the humanities, he went
on to earn a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Illinois. In 1958, he began teaching at Loyola University
of Los Angeles. Three years later, he served as Visiting Professor of American Studies at the University of Sonora in Mexico,
and during 1964 and 1965 he was a visiting professor at several universities in Caracas, Venezuela, including Universidad
Católica Andrés Bello and the Instituto Pedagogico. Also a specialist in pre-Columbian Amerindian religion, Fox lectured throughout
South America under the sponsorship of the United States Information Service. It was at this time that he worked on the manuscript
for his novel
The Taffy Hills, which was never published.
Returning to Los Angeles, Hugh Fox began to concentrate on his poetry, publishing numerous chapbooks through small presses,
as well as writing his novel
Countdown on an Empty Streetcar. He immersed himself in the city's underground poetry scene, and befriended poets such as Richard Morris, Blythe Ayne, A.D.
Winans, and Charles Bukowski. He also began to explore his transvestite inclinations, and would occasionally publish under
the name of his female alter-ego, Connie. In 1968 he founded
Ghost Dance: The International Quarterly of Experimental Poetry, which he would edit for 27 years.
Hugh Fox then left Los Angeles for a post at Michigan State University's Department of American Thought and Language, where
he is now a Professor Emeritus. In 1969, Fox published the first critical analysis of Bukowski's work in
Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study. He was also the first to publish a critical study of the works of poet Lyn Lifshin, and has produced several poetry anthologies.
He continues to write in a variety of genres, having recently published
Shaman (1993),
The Last Summer (1995),
Stairway to the Sun (1996), and
Back: Brazil-Peru Poems (1997).
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains a mimeographed typescript of Hugh Fox's
Countdown on an Empty Streetcar, a heavily corrected typescript draft of his novel
The TaffyHills, and poetry/artwork from the 1960s.