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Haniel Long Collection

Distinguished author, publisher, and literary visionary Haniel Long was born to Methodist missionaries Samuel P. and May Clark Long on March 9, 1888. His education was rigorous and extensive; including Philips-Exeter Academy and Harvard.

Haniel Long began his career as a reporter for the New York Globe, but after a year he returned to his childhood home, Pittsburgh, to take up a teaching position at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon.) In 1918, two books of poetry that he edited, SoldierÕs Progress and Carnegie Tech War Verse, were published. After ten years of teaching, he was promoted to head of the English Department in 1920. That same year, his first book was published, a collection of his poetry entitled simply, Poems. In 1926, his second book came out -- a delightful assortment of fairy tale-like stories called Notes for a New Mythology.

In 1929, Haniel Long resigned from his position at Carnegie Tech and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico for health reasons. During the Great Depression, when few writers found the opportunity to publish their works, he helped to found Writers' Editions, later described by his son as, "a cooperative regional publishing arrangement." Writers' Editions concentrated on printing works by New Mexican writers, including Haniel Long.

This highly successful organization published a book of his verse, Atlantides, in 1933 and Pittsburgh Memoranda in 1935. In 1936, Writers' Editions printed his novella Interlinear to Cabeza de Vaca, which is widely regarded to be the most powerful work of his career. It is Long's testimony to his belief in man's ability to help others.

The following year, he took a position editing the writers' page of The New Mexico Sentinel. Writers' Editions continued to print Haniel Long's works -- Walt Whitman and the Springs of Courage in 1938 and Malinche (Dona Marina) in 1939. Severe paper shortages due to World War II caused WritersÕ Editions to shut down entirely.

However, the end of Writers' Editions did not spell the end for Long's literary career. Among the works that he subsequently produced were: Pinon Country (1941), Children, Students and a Few Adults (1942), French Soldier Home from Being a War Prisoner (1942), The Grist Mill (1945), and A Letter to St. Augustine (1950). He finished his last novel, Spring Returns, in 1956, shortly before his death. It was published posthumously, as were the previously unprinted works If He Can Make Her So (1968) and My Seasons (1977).

The main repository for Haniel Long's manuscripts is Special Collections of the Libraries of the University of California, Los Angeles. Because of the Pittsburgh connection, though, after Haniel Long's death, his son Anton donated manuscript materials, correspondence and unpublished work to the Fine and Rare Book Rooms of Hunt Library. The collection also contains copies of most of his published works, including foreign language editions, as well as biographical information.