We Are Looking for a Book

Unfortunately, It Is Very Hard to Find

Joaquin Miller wrote two books of poetry during his stay in Canyon City Oregon: "Specimens" and "Miller et al." We would like to get copies of these two books for the Grant County Historical Museum in Canyon City. It turns out that "Specimens" is extremely hard to find. Miller had it printed privately so the original run was limited to start with. Then the building where most of the unsold copies were stored burned down. Further, I have read that Miller made a practice of destroying any copy of "Specimens" he encountered in his later years.

Seek and ye Shall Find (Sometimes)

But Not Always

Here are my results to date:
In 2012 someone offered a copy at auction which did not sell. I have contacted the auction house and they cannot provide me any information about the seller.

The University of Oregon Library has a copy of "Miller et al" which has a copy of "Specimens" bound into it.

And that's it for copies of "Specimens." I believe UC Berkely may have a copy but all the other library listings I have found are actually copies.

If We Gave up This Easy,

We Would Never have Made it West of New Jersey

I have done what I can do by myself, it is time to ask for help. I don't expect that anyone who reads this will have a copy of "Specimens" sitting on their shelf. But on the principle of six degrees of separation, perhaps someone knows someone who knows where a copy of "Specimens" can be found. So with that in mind, I am asking all who read this to consider who among their acquaintances could possibly know something about this.

And Then What?

Canyon City's Gift to World Literature

Eventually, it would be noice to have a complete Miller library available for study. The first two books are going to be the hardest. The rest of Miller's published books should be much easier to find. Much of Miller's output was printed in various newspapers and magazines and this will be much more challenging so we will leave that for last although it will be necessary to for any through examination of Joaquin Miller as a writer.

Now for Something Completely Different

Alligators and Allegations

The degradation of the English language has been a concern to me for some time and now I will place my very limited power in opposition to this trend. One of the main dirvers of this degradation is the move from prescriptive to descriptive usage in our dictionaries. Present practice accepts common usage as definitive. This is a dwindling gyre because once careless usage robs a word of its precision that clarity can never be recovered. An example of this is the word "refute." Refute used to mean "to prove erroneous" in news stories today refute is commonly treated as a synonym for "deny." We used to have a good word for making the distinction between an assertion backed by evidence and one without. Now we do not and there is no way to resore "refute" to its former state.