February 17, 1997

Bequest to library includes rare books by James Joyce and books and letters of Kenneth Patchen

By Barbara McKenna

The University Library has received an important gift of books, letters, and other materials from the estate of the late Alan and Beatrice Parker of Carmel Highlands, California. Included in the collection are rare editions of the works of James Joyce and Kenneth Patchen and a large collection of letters from Kenneth and Miriam Patchen to the Parkers.

The Joyce materials include a first edition of Ulysses (1922); a 1935 edition of Ulysses, illustrated and signed by Henri Matisse; a first edition of Anna Livia Plurabelle (1928), signed by the author; Tales Told of Shem and Shaun (1929); several other first editions from the 1920s and 1930s; and several rare issues of the journal Transition, which contain many Joyce works in progress. Parker was both a collector and bibliographer of Joyce. The manuscript and first edition of his 1948 bibliography of Joyce's works is also part of the gift.

The Kenneth Patchen materials include more than 30 books and some 80 letters and cards from the Patchens to their close friends the Parkers. The gift will enhance what is already the world's finest collection of work by that poet.

Before receiving the Parker gift, the library's Special Collections unit had signed copies of most of the Patchen editions in the Parker collection, but several of the Parker copies also feature vividly handpainted illustrations by the author. Many of the letters are also decorated with original paintings.

A particularly poignant sequence of letters from Patchen to Parker concerns their shared pacificism. Ironically, the series concludes with a letter addressed to Ensign Alan Parker, aboard a U.S. Navy ship in the Atlantic. During the same year (1941), Patchen self-published the first edition of his famous tract against war, the Journal of Albion Moonlight. A signed copy of that work is included in the Parker collection.

Alan Parker was an accomplished painter, and many of his works hang in the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art. In the early 1970s, he taught aesthetics and painting at UCSC, and exhibits of his work were held at Crown College and in the Sesnon gallery. He died in the winter of 1994. His wife Beatrice, formerly a teacher, died in the summer of 1996.

The Parker gift is currently being processed by UCSC's Special Collections. For more information, call Rita Bottoms at (408) 459-2414.

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