Kim Stanley Robinson's papers are headed to the Huntington
Preserved for future scholars
The Huntington, a California research institution and library has announced that it has acquired the papers and personal library of renowned science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, joining its collection of 12+ million items that date back centuries.
Robinson is one of the science fiction genre's leading minds, and is the author of such books as Red Mars, Aurora, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future, often examining the role that humanity plays in the universe, and how we've affected the climate and health of our planet.
Andrew Liptak
Over the course of his career as a writer and scholar (he earned his PhD in literature, focusing on the works of Philip K. Dick), he's amassed a large library and collection of papers that'll now be preserved for scholars in the field. According to the Huntington, the entire collection is 50 linear feet of papers and photographs, as well as digital files.
It includes drafts of "nearly all of Robinson’s novels, with extensive revisions that reveal his writing process and evolving ideas," his research notes and materials that went into those books, letters and correspondence with authors, policy experts, and scientists, his personal notebooks and journals, photographs, and annotated editions of the books that he was influenced by.
According to The Huntington's senior curator of literary collections, Karla Nielsen, the collection represents an exhaustive view into his work: "A personal reading and research library is especially important for understanding a writer like Robinson whose fictions move so widely and variably in time and space, with one novel set in Ice Age caves to another on a multigenerational starship.”
“The notebooks he kept consistently for decades document his wide-ranging reading and include notes to self, research from books and interviews, drafts of scenes. The archive also includes large pieces of paper on which he outlined the chapters of many of his novels. These materials show how Robinson’s research and networks informed well-plotted speculative fiction that aims to give readers ways to think about urgent real-world concerns.”
I've written a lot about science fiction's history and now work in an institution that's dedicated to preserving history: this sort of preservation method is not only wonderful to see, but it's an essential part of preserving this genre's history. Literature is often in some sort of conversation with the world around us, and that's undoubtably so when it comes to Robinson and his body of work: he's been an engaged figure in exploring the ramifications of climate change, deeply researching the world to figure out how we'll potentially live in the future. Literature is also often subjective: it's easy to fall into a trap of "this author wrote about this, so therefore, they must mean that," when in reality the truth is far more nuanced. Having an author's personal correspondence, journals, and papers allows scholars to better understand what their subjects were thinking at the time, allowing them to get more accurate insights into their lives and work.
The Huntington is also home to a number of authors, including the likes of Jack London, Hilary Mantel, and Octavia E. Butler, and also hosts fellowships, visiting scholars, and programming that helps bring the library's collection of documents to the public.
Recently, Susana M. Morris published Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler, and drew extensively on the papers and journals that the archive now holds. I'm planning on reviewing it soon, but I think it's safe to say that without this preservation, Morris wouldn't have been able to make as deep a dive into Butler's life and yielded the excellent portrait that she put together. I have little doubt that someone down the road will do the same for Robinson, as well as countless papers, dissertations, and other research that'll put his work in context and work to understand how his novels and imagination have influenced not just science fiction, but our broader understanding of how we've reacted to climate change as a society.