One
of the bright spots in the book world year, for those of us who live in
cold climates, is the California Book Fair. After a particularly nasty
January, the prospect of sunny and sixty is pretty exciting. Having
shoveled my car out of the driveway one morning, I found myself the next
day having lunch on a porch overlooking the vast Pacific. There was no
need for wild surmise, and it was a long way from
Darien
(
Connecticut
, that is).
This would do I thought, munching on my fish taco.
Besides
the book fair, it was the vast Pacific which motivated my trip, or more
correctly books about the v. P. I was on my way to the
University
of
California
at
San Diego
for the
publication party of the new edition of the Hill
Collection of Pacific Voyages, which I have just published on behalf
of UCSD, in conjunction with Hordern House of
Sydney
,
Australia
, on the other
side of the v. P. Not having enough ways to torture myself, I have
undertaken publishing several reference works in recent years. This is
an exercise similar to renovating a house. Anyone who does it usually
swears they will never do it again, but after awhile the pain subsides
and it seems as if it will be amusing again.
Kenneth
Hill, who died several years ago, was one of the great book collectors
of recent decades in the
United States
. At various
points he collected Pacific Voyages,
Western
Americana
, ornithology,
meteorology, and simply books which interested him. His son Jonathan,
the distinguished dealer in history of science and the like, has written
a charming memoir of his father’s collecting career which appears as
an introduction to the new edition. Ken was in many ways an ideal
collector; he was passionate about his areas of interest, loved to buy
books, liked the people who sold them (a most admirable trait), and
disposed of them to good effect to worthy institutions, which he also
supported through gifts and work on their behalf. Foremost among these
benefactions was his gift of his collection of Pacific Voyages to UCSD,
beginning in 1974.
Also
beginning in 1974, UCSD published a catalogue of the Hill Collection,
which has become a standard reference in the field. Besides now being
out of print, the catalogue had various problems; there were
inconsistencies of style, three different alphabets, and no numbering of
entries. Of course, it did not contain all of the books acquired in the
last twenty years. When Ken Hill was still alive I proposed the idea of
a new edition to him, which he enthusiastically supported. We then
undertook the toilsome task of producing the new edition, led by Joseph
Bray of UCSD, who wrote the new entries, and Susan Imhoff in my office,
who did the general editing and produced the new indexes. The new Hill
has 1937 entries, all in one sturdy 800-page volume. Since the first
edition has been very difficult to obtain, it now makes this standard
reference available in a new and vastly improved version. Ken included
much of his
Western
Americana
and
Californiana in his gifts, and all of this material appears in the Hill
Catalogue as well, making it a doubly useful reference.
The
campus and library of UCSD are quite extraordinary. Now the third
largest in the
California
system, the
campus sits high above the v. P. just north of
La Jolla
, a former
artist colony turned picturesque tourist trap which is still well worth
a visit. There are many places to consume that lunch with the fabulous
view. We went by the aquarium at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute,
just next door; I recommend a visit to anyone who wants to see an
extraordinary display of the world’s fishes or to pre-plan their sushi
dinner. The campus is vast and sprawling, with new buildings sprouting.
Amidst this it is a surprise for any first time visitor to come upon the
main library, donated by Dr. Seuss, no less (a
La Jolla
native). It
rises, a vast inverted glass pyramid like a landing spacecraft, a
nightmare of library design only surpassed by the Biblioteque Nationale.
The library collections surpassed its capacity long ago, but the
additions are all underground (UCSD just acquired its three millionth
volume). Within this bizarre carapace the Special Collections is an
island of calm, with rich holdings beyond the Pacific Voyages and the
Hill meteorology collection, also here. I
recommend the Collections, and their catalogue, to anyone interested in
Pacific Voyages.
– William S. Reese
