Finding Aid for the Wilder Bentley Papers, 1930-1945, undated.
Processed by Clark Library staff; machine-readable finding aid created by
Caroline Cubé
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2520 Cimarron Street
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90018
Phone: (323) 731-8529
Fax: (323) 731-8617
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© 1998
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Wilder Bentley Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1930-1945.
Press Coll. Archives: Bentley
Creator: Bentley, Wilder, 1900-1989
Physical Description: 6 boxes 3 linear feet
Repository:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Physical location: Some portions of this collection are housed off-site. Please contact Clark Library staff at least 2 weeks in advance if you
would like to view the materials in this collection.
Language of Material: Collection materials in English
Administrative Information
Source of Acquisition/Provenance
Gift, 1945-58 from Wilder Bentley.
Purchase, 1945-50 from Wilder Bentley.
Purchase, 1949 from Dawson's Bookshop.
Gift, 1957 from J. E. Reynolds.
Access
Collection is open for research.
Restrictions on Use
Copyright has not been assigned to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA. All
requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing
to the Clark Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA 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.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Wilder Bentley Papers, 1930-1945, undated. (Press Coll. Bentley).
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Biography
Wilder Bentley was born in San Francisco in 1900. He attended Yale University and the
University of Michigan. He spent several years in Europe, providing relief work with
French war orphans and later traveling. He worked at the Laboratory Press at the Carnegie
Institute of Technology from 1931-33. He became an honorary associate member of the
American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1932. He printed books for the Archetype Press and
the Greenwood Press and taught in the School of Humanities, San Francisco State College.
Arrangement
The collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Printing activities, 1930-1944, undated
- Wilder Bentley and other activities
besides printing, 1932-1945, undated
- Other persons associated with Bentley, undated
When requesting items, please state box number, folder number, and title.
Scope and Content
This collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, designs, and miscellaneous
printed ephemera related to the activities of Wilder Bentley and his work with the
Archetype Press. Also included are materials related to his non-printing endeavors and to his friends and colleagues.
Access Points
Bentley, Wilder, 1900-1989
Poetry, American
Printing---Study and teaching
Series I.
Printing activities,
1930-1944, undated
Box 1, Folder 1.
Pollio The Fourth Eclogue by Virgil, The Parable of the Sower, The Price of Printing by Hand, 1930; and The Frankeleyn's
Tale
Box 1, Folder 2.
Works Published at his Press: Broadsides and Pamphlets
Scope and Content Note
(Carol, 1938 (William Austin); Psalm XXIII/ A Psalm of King David, 1936; The Printer's
Mistress to his Wife (Barbara Cowles); Snowfall, 1931 (Giosue Carducci); The Nativity,
1942 (Giles Fletcher the Younger); The Wise Men and the Shepherds, 1944 (Sidney
Godolphin); Harbor and City of Monterey, 1938 (George Harding); Birthday Piece of Porter
Garnett (Walter Leuba); Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, 1943 (John Milton);
Hirose Tanso to a Friend, 1937).
Box 1, Folder 3.
Reviews of Press Books
Scope and Content Note
(newspaper clippings from New England Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times
Book Review)
Box 2, Folder 1.
Inserts, labels, and other printing connected with press work
Scope and Content Note
(Pacific Adventures Number One: The King of California; The Cat and the Cherub; Bookmark
Ballads: No. 1 for Padre Vicentio; The Ideal Book; Some Chinese Ghosts; Dedications by
Kathleen Norris; Maurice Sterne: Murals in the Library of the Department of Justice ...;
Yosemite: September 1938).
Box 2, Folder 2.
Book prospectuses and book catalogs
Scope and Content Note
(The Frankelyns Tale; Font's Complete Diary: A Chronicle of the Founding of San
Francisco; The Adventure of Padre Vicentio; The Right Eye of the Commander: A New Year's
Legend of Spanish California; Some Chinese Ghosts; The Immortal Garland, Terza-Rima
Sonnets (22 copies); Newton's Principia in Modern English Rendering; From the Sierra to
the Sea; The Poetry Folios; A Native American).
Box 2, Folder 3.
Christmas cards
Scope and Content Note
(Ansel and Virginia Adams, Wilder and Ellen Bentley, Olga Cleese, Mary and Lloyd Hoff,
Thomas W. McDonald, Frank and Ellen Mather, Stanley Poweel, Max and Dorothea Radin,
Dexter Newell and Libby Richards, A.M. Witherspoon)
Box 2, Folder 4.
Bookplates
Scope and Content Note
(Wilder Bentley, William Henry Davenport, Jo and Reuel Fick, M.M. Hart, Maud Russell,
Mary and Lloyd Hoff, George Otis Smith, University of California Press)
Box 2, Folder 5.
Announcements, business cards, programs
Scope and Content Note
(Photography exhibit for Ansel Adams, 1939; Program for Amphion Club Annual Concert,
1938; Griff Borja, KLS Oakland, La Voz de las Americas Hispañas, Japan Society of San
Francisco, Dorothy McDonald announcement, Exhibition of Chiura Obata, Haruko Obata
business card, Alexander G. Weygers, Charles Saunders announcement)
Box 2, Folder 6.
Bentley's Press: Stationery and announcements
Scope and Content Note
(stationery, package label for the Archetype Press, notice of disbanding of Archetype
Press 1940)
Box 2, Folder 7.
Archetype press memorabilia
Scope and Content Note
(announcements, press notices, letters, Roster and Record of the Broadside Club 29
November 1938, Goudy Newcastle clipping)
Series II.
Wilder Bentley and other activities besides printing,
1932-1945, undated
Box 3, Folder 1.
Exhibits
Scope and Content Note
(De Young Museum San Francisco, 1943; The Art of Wilder Bentley; On Cultivating the
Dragon: Experiments in Hybrid Art; Recollections in Tranquillity of the Calligraphy of
Time and Tide; UCLA; A Message to the Pacifica House; My Motivation and Objections; The
War Masks Series of Monotypes)
Box 3, Folder 2.
Lectures given by Wilder Bentley
Scope and Content Note
(An Apology for the Hand Press; Lifelong Learning: The Printing of Poetry; Lectures on
Fine Books--California Guild of Bookbinders; The Fifty Books of the Fifty Books; Is A
Gift or Bequest to a Library a Behest to Display)
Box 3, Folder 3.
Teaching activities
Scope and Content Note
(Announcing Six Fine Arts Courses on the History and Art of the Book; History and
Aesthetics of Fine Printing, 1932; The Art of the Book: Fine Printing: Theoretical
Typography)
Box 3, Folder 4.
Correspondence from Wilder Bentley
Scope and Content Note
(Alfred Frankenstein, Walter Heil, De Young Museum, Miss Haberl, William Dennis, H.
Richard Archer)
Box 3, Folder 5.
Correspondence to Wilder Bentley (arranged alphabetically by correspondent)
Scope and Content Note
(British War Relief Association of Northern California, Donald Cameron, M.H. De Young
Memorial Museum, Thomas Fairbanks Co, The Grolier Club, A.C. Jewett, Librarie Ancienne,
Mills College, James Laughlin, Oxford University Press, Elaine Rushmore, Society for the
Prevention of Progress, US Department of State, Swarthmore College Library, Vander
MacIver, Yale University Library)
Box 3, Folder 6.
Articles, clippings, and other items (ephemera)
Scope and Content Note
(Fine Printing in California; Fog Over San Francisco; The Matter of Taste: How It Behaves
in Typography; Birth of the Roxburghe Club; Notes for Bibliophiles: Earliest Printing in
California; The Printing House of Paris)
Box 4, Folder 7.
MS. verses by W.B.
Scope and Content Note
(Excursion on the Bay, Joaquin Murietta, New Albion, Salvage, The Archaeologists at
Shellmound, Three Flights Up, Tiburon, Unheroic Couplets)
Box 4, Folder 8.
Arcadian Reminiscences of a Pioneer Pedagogue (TS., 25 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 9.
Cherokee Poetry (95 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 10.
Report on Christopher Columbus and the Voyage of Ulysses in Dante's Room (18 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 11.
Doel Reed: The Artist and the Craftsman, An Appreciation (TS., 5 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 12.
From the Embarcadero or Marginalia from an Old Tide Book (TS., 55 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 13.
Ms--Hellesphere (26 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 14.
Ideals and Idols (TS., 26 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 15.
Leonardo at Stromboli or The Longing to Know a Dialogue (6 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 16.
The Letters of Hale Dwight Worthington to his Mother on Diverse Subjects of Interest
Scope and Content Note
(TS., 16 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 17.
Larnin Air a Strange Thing, Rufe! (TS., 12 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 18.
Oklahoma Idylls (TS., 34 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 19.
A Prospectus: Orders of the Mind (TS., 2 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 20.
A Rabelais Bibliography in English (TS., 3 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 21.
Will Rogers: A Tragic Farce in Two Short Acts with an Intermission for Fatigued Fatalists
Scope and Content Note
(TS., 14 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 22.
Theoretical Book Typography: An Esthetic Investigation (TS., 86 leaves)
Box 4, Folder 23.
Towards a Prelum and Scriptorium at Chadwick Seaside School (TS., 3 pages)
Box 4, Folder 24.
Tributes to Porter Garnett
Scope and Content Note
Collectanea in Honor of the Eightieth Year of an Arduous Journey and a Fervent Will
Anthology for Porter Garnett (TS., 7 leaves)
Porter Garnett and the Laboratory Press: A Few Philosophical Notes by Wilder Bentley
-TS., (4 leaves) Porter Garnett and the Laboratory Press: A Few Philosophical Notes by
Wilder Bentley--Castle Press
Porter Garnett: 1871-1951. Master of the Laboratory Press Carnegie Institute of
Technology, 1922-1935 (TS., 10 leaves)
The Pacific Printer and Publisher
Box 4, Folder 25.
Published works
Scope and Content Note
- A Landscape of the Seasons
- Notes on the Amateur
Handpress
- The Printer to the Poet
- City Lights
- Two
Monotypes
Box 5, Folder 27.
Letter designs by Wilder Bentley
Box 5, Folder 28.
Wilder Bentley's designs for The Architectural Forum
Scope and Content Note
The Architectural Forum Competition (2 copies) page layouts, 6 leaves negatives of page
layouts, 8 leaves
Box 5, Folder 29.
Writings about Wilder Bentley
Scope and Content Note
- A Survey of Contemporary Hand Press Printing in Northern
California
- Renowned Artist at State
- Wilder Bentley
- Printer's Art Interprets Spirit of Author's Work
- A Comp's Eye View of
Wilder Bentley and the Archetype Press
Box 5, Folder 30.
Lists of books sold by Wilder Bentley to the Clark Library
Box 5, Folder 31.
Personal ephemera
Scope and Content Note
- photograph (photo taken at the Archetype Press in 1939 by
Robin Faber)
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
(application for employment 1945, 11 leaves)
- Pocket notebook,
addresses
Series III.
Other persons associated with Bentley,
undated
Box 6, Folder 1a.
An Essay on Scholarship (Joseph Addison)
Box 6, Folder 1b.
A Birthday Party for Albert Bender
Box 6, Folder 1c.
Ten Commandments, To A Mouse, Chaucer
Box 6, Folder 1d.
A Resolution in Four Sonnets of a Poetical Question Put to me by a Friend Concerning Four Rural Sisters (Charles Cotton)
Box 6, Folder 1e.
The Pickwick Club Goes Down to Keep Christmas at Dingley Dell (Charles Dickens)
Box 6, Folder 1f.
The Oop Unit (Porter Garnett)
Box 6, Folder 1g.
Sermon on Space (David Greenhood)
Box 6, Folder 1i.
Laboratory Press: A list of broadsides, brochures, and books
Box 6, Folder 1j.
Thomas Joseph McDonald Recalls his Frisco of the Eighties
Box 6, Folder 1k.
The Pirates of Penzance--Chadwick School playbill
Box 6, Folder 1l.
An Evening with William Morris
Box 6, Folder 1m.
Shakespeare/ Sonnet 24 and The Dagger Soliloquy
Box 6, Folder 1n.
Charles and Dorothy Shaw Christmas Greeting 1939
Box 6, Folder 1o.
Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit (Paul Verlaine)
Box 6, Folder 2.
Wilder Bentley, Jr.
Scope and Content Note
(Last Breath ... (Bruce Baillie); Incipit ... (Wilder Bentley); Adrift in Valueland
...(Wilder Bentley, Jr.); Lord of Hosts; Our Father=PaterNoster=Notre Pere; Never
Imitate)
Box 6, Folder 3.
Writings by William Saroyan
Scope and Content Note
(The Circus; The Fifty-Yard Dash; The Journey to Hanford; Locomotive 38; Memoirs of an
Athlete; A Nice Old Fashioned Romance with Love Lyrics and Everything; the Pomegranate
Tress; The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse)
Box 6, Folder 4.
Harmer Davis--Rigging of Star of India in Oakland Estuary (photographs)
Box 6, Folder 5.
Lloyd Hoff--The Printer to the Poet (ink drawing), The Right Eye of the Commander (ink drawing), vignette, sketches, trial
illuminations.
Box 6, Folder 6.
Chiura Obata--cartoons of Poor Fish, Just Fish (pencil drawing), specimens of illuminations
Box 6, Folder 7.
Material about Chiura Obata
Scope and Content Note
(newspaper clippings, TS., Chiura Obata and the Universal Language of Art: An
Appreciation)
Box 6, Folder 8.
Alexander Weygers
Scope and Content Note
(Vignette, wood engraving used in The Printer's Mistress to His Wife, Fisherman's Wharf,
Mission Dolores engraving, engravings)
Box 6, Folder 9.
Designs for end sheets
Scope and Content Note
(46 designs for end sheets)