Eaton Collection - History

History

When the family of the late Oakland physician and book collector Dr. J. Lloyd Eaton (1902–1968) sought a home for his collection, science fiction was considered an inferior literary product—pleasant enough as a diversion, but unworthy of serious academic study. As even public libraries did not regularly acquire science fiction, there was no comprehensive collection available anywhere outside of private hands. Dr. Eaton's collection, acquired by UCR's University Librarian Donald Wilson in 1969, consisted of about 7,500 hardback editions of science fiction, fantasy, and horror from the late nineteenth century to 1955, and it contained many rare and unusual titles. The development of the collection continued under University Librarian Eleanor Montague, who created the position of Eaton Curator, hiring for the position George Slusser, a Harvard-trained literary scholar. During Slusser's 25-year curatorship, the Eaton collection grew to more than 100,000 volumes, ranging from the 1517 edition of Thomas More's Utopia to the most recently published titles. Foreign works of science fiction have been added systematically, including works in Chinese, Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish. The collection also includes journals, comic books, and fanzines, primarily acquired as donations from collectors Terry Carr, Bruce Pelz, Fred Patten, and Rick Sneary. In recent years, films, videos, DVDs, film scripts, and illustrated narratives have been added, most of which were donated. The archival holdings comprise the papers of leading science fiction and fantasy authors, including Gregory Benford, F. M. Busby, Michael Cassutt, Robert L. Forward, Anne McCaffrey, William Rotsler, Colin Wilson, and James White.