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Guide to the Overland Monthly Records, 1869-1886
BANC MSS C-H 97
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Overland Monthly Records,
Date (inclusive): 1869-1886
Collection Number: BANC MSS C-H 97
Creator: Overland Monthly
Extent:
Number of containers: 1 box
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.
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], Overland Monthly Records, BANC MSS C-H 97, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
The
Overland Monthly was founded in 1868 by Anton Roman, a San Francisco bookseller and publisher who felt that he could make a success of a monthly
magazine distinctively literary in character and devoted to the interests of the Pacific States. The first issue appeared,
with Bret Harte as editor, in July 1868, and it subsequently became one of the greatest magazines of its day. Its fortunes
declined, however, after Harte's departure for the East in 1871 and with the depression of 1873. The editorship passed successively
to W. C. Bartlett, to Benjamin P. Avery of the
Bulletin, and finally to T. A. Harcourt and Walter M. Fisher, two of Hubert H. Bancroft's assistants. With the issue of December 1875
the magazine ceased publication.
In January 1883 a new
Overland Monthly appeared, formed by a union of the old and the
Californian, a literary monthly. Milicent Washburn Shinn served as editor from 1883 to 1894.
These
Overland Monthly papers were transferred to the Bancroft Library from the Main Library, most of them coming from the Rare Books Department
in 1958. They consist primarily of letters, ca. 1869-1875, addressed to Benjamin P. Avery and John H. Carmany (who bought
the magazine from Roman in 1870). There are also a few letters, 1884-1886, from Sherman Day and Samuel Hopkins Willey, addressed
to Miss Shinn. The collection also includes some manuscript poems, a note by Hubert H. Bancroft on his history project, and
an account book of moneys paid contributors, 1869-1875. The correspondence, which was removed from the binders in which it
was pasted, is arranged alphabetically, with single letters in a miscellany at the beginning. The manuscripts and account
book are described in the Key to Arrangement. A list of the major correspondents and the contributors of the manuscript poems
are included herein.
Five letters (from Zitella Corke, J.W. Gally, Rose H. Lathrop, John Muir, and Edmund C. Stedman) were added, Mar. 1972, gift
of Sheldon Cheney.