Preferred Citation:	H. L. (Harold Lenoir) Davis Collection (Manuscript Collection MS-01084). Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
	Acquisition:	Purchases and gifts, 1960-2013 (10 unnumbered purchases, 1960-1961; Gift, 1962; Gift, 1971; G1703, 1983; 13-09-0008G, 2018)
	Processed by:	Joan Sibley, 2026. Note: For collection description previously available only in a card catalog, please see the explanatory note for information regarding the arrangement of the manuscripts as well as the abbreviations commonly used in descriptions.

Repository:

Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

	The American novelist, short story writer, and poet H. L. (Harold Lenoir) Davis was a native of Oregon who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936 for his first novel Honey in the Horn (1935). His early poems were published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry (1919) and by H. L. Mencken in the American Mercury (1929). Encouraged by Mencken, he began writing and publishing short stories before eventually turning to novels, first supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship that he spent writing in Mexico (1932-1934).
	During his career, Davis published five novels and three collections (poetry, short stories, and travel essays originally published in Holiday magazine) that reflected his Pacific Northwest roots and life lived in Oregon, Washington, Mexico, and California. One in-depth study summarizes Davis’s writings as concerning the “settlement and development of the American West from the 1850s until the 1920s” and “coming to terms with the world around us by examining our roots, our heritage, our land and our responses to that land.”
	Davis also spent time in Hollywood writing scripts and researching for movies at Paramount Pictures, working on assignments between 1947 and 1954.
	Davis was married twice, first to newspaperwoman Marion Lay (1903-1958) in 1928 (divorced 1943) and in 1953 to Elizabeth Tonkin Martin del Campo (1919-2008). His later years were marked by increasing health problems and two heart attacks, the second of which was fatal on October 31, 1960.

	The collection of American novelist, short-story writer, and poet H. L. Davis includes manuscripts of his works, correspondence, professional and personal papers, and works by others about Davis and his writings. Correspondents include Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Harper & Brothers, Thayer Hobson, Holiday magazine, Bowen Ingram, H. L. Mencken, Harriet Monroe, Paramount Pictures, Mary Shaw, Robert Shaw, James Stevens, and William Morrow & Company among others
	This collection was previously accessible only through a card catalog but has now been re-cataloged as part of a retrospective conversion project. The material is organized into four series: I. Works; II. Letters (Outgoing Correspondence); III. Recipients (Incoming Correspondence); and IV. Miscellaneous, with materials arranged alphabetically by title or author. See the Indexes for Works, Letters, Recipients, and Miscellaneous in this finding aid to further identify titles of works and correspondent names present in this collection. Descriptions of two small Additional Acquisitions received in 1983 and 2013 follow Series IV.
	Series I. Works, 1927-1960 (10 boxes): The works include poems, short stories, novels, essays (some on travel), reviews, one motion picture treatment, journals, notes, and research materials. Dominant in this series are Davis’s novels, especially for Harp of a Thousand Strings (1947) and Beulah Land (1949), plus short prose published in Holiday (1953-1961) and the Rocky Mountain Herald (1942-1955). There are also several unpublished/unfinished works.
	Notable are Davis’s “journals” (26), which span 1929 to 1960. Rather than typical bound diaries, most of these journals consist of loose typed and/or handwritten pages. The entries frequently note the weather and natural surroundings (both flora and fauna), but also track his writings and ideas; reference other authors and books; compile materials from reference materials; note dialogue, words, and names; cite current events (labor strikes, World War II, and the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, for example); and record his opinions and personal reflections. Locales in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general, Mexico, and California are referenced, as are topics such as folklore, the West and the frontier experience, and Native Americans. A few manuscripts titled under notes in this Series contain some content similar to the journals.
	There is little represented in the works from Davis’s time writing for motion pictures (1947-1954) except for "The Covered Wagon" for Paramount and possibly some additional research work that may be present in the journals and/or notes segments.
	Many of Davis’s manuscripts include doodles, sketches, or drawings, most often of heads and faces.
	Correspondence: Series II. Letters (Outgoing Correspondence), 1927-1960 and Series III. Recipient (Incoming Correspondence), 1933-1960 (4 boxes): Davis’s correspondence documents early mentors such as Harriet Monroe (Poetry) and H. L. Mencken (American Mercury), as well as admirer Carl Sandburg, and Davis’s early collaborator James Stevens. Authors Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Bowen Ingram, and Mary and Robert Shaw are also well-represented.
	Career-related correspondence is dominated by Davis’s two major publishers, Harper & Brothers (Edward Aswell) and William Morrow and Company (Thayer Hobson, John T. Lawrence, Frances Phillips), and also includes letters with other business contacts, such as agents, editors, lawyers, and publications (Holiday magazine, Saturday Evening Post).
	There is also correspondence documenting Davis’s motion picture work with Paramount Pictures and producers and screenwriters such as John Cecil Haggott and Alan Pakula (only Davis’s outgoing letters to Pakula).
	In addition to letters from Davis’s wives and family members, other correspondents who may be of interest are Justino Fernández (Mexican art historian and critic), S. Morley Griswold (archaeologist), and Pare M. Lorentz (filmmaker).
	Series IV. Miscellaneous, 1934-1972 (4 boxes): Of special interest in this Series are some of Davis’s personal papers, among them bank statements, bills and receipts, contracts and copyright materials, medical bills and statements, and additional notes, including a bound volume with clippings from Mexico (some circa 1934) and additional notes.
	Additional papers represent publishers Harper & Brothers and William Morrow & Company, especially Morrow, with documents, correspondence, and royalty statements.
	An English manuscript of a work by the Peruvian writer José Maria de Eça de Queiróz is present ("The City and the Mountains," 1945), along with a few works by other authors about H. L. Davis. One motion picture script by William Sackheim represents a Columbia Pictures project about the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) titled "The Prince of Stallions" (1947).
	Additional Acquisitions: A 1983 addition to Davis Collection contains correspondence and clippings concerning John Cecil Haggott’s motion picture script about the Sand River Massacre of 1864 (1947), as well as some materials on the publication of Harp of a Thousand Strings (1947) and Beulah Land (1949). A 2013 acquisition consists of a lengthy letter from Mary Shaw to Davis’s younger brother Richard H. Davis, describing events in H. L. Davis’s life during their friendship of 25 years.
	Content warning: This collection contains material that users may consider offensive or harmful, such as terminology, language, and negative stereotypes that may be considered racist, sexist, outdated, or exclusionary. This language was used by the people and organizations that created the material and reflects the period in which they were created. It should not be interpreted to mean that Center staff endorse or approve of the representations or stereotypes implied within. For more, please refer to the Center’s Statement on Language in Ransom Center Descriptive Records.

	At the Harry Ransom Center, additional H. L. Davis materials are present in several related manuscript collections, including the Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Literary File Photography Collection, J. Frank Dobie Papers, Harper & Brothers Records, Thayer Hobson Papers, and Idella Purnell Stone Personal Papers and Records of Palms.
	Among the other repositories of H. L. Davis holdings are:
	St. Mary’s University of San Antonio. Harold Lenoir Davis Papers, 1936-1960.
	Tennessee State Library and Archives. H.L. (Harold Lenoir) Davis Papers, 1936-1955.
	University of California, Los Angeles. H.L. Davis papers, 1949-1952.
	University of Oregon. Harold Lenoir Davis letters to Mildred P. Ingram, 1945-1955.

	Other H. L. Davis holdings at the Harry Ransom Center include:
	Books (29), Objects (3, leather shoulder bag, pistol, and holster), Photographs (45), Sound Recordings (2), and Vertical File (3 boxes of printed ephemera removed from manuscripts and books during cataloging, mainly reviews and other clippings and a number of maps).

	People
		Ferril, Thomas Hornsby, 1896-1988
		Hobson, Thayer, 1897-1967
		Ingram, Bowen
		Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956
		Monroe, Harriet, 1860-1936
		Shaw, Mary
		Shaw, Robert
		Stevens, James, 1892-1971
	Organizations
		Harper Brothers
		Holiday (magazine)
		Paramount Pictures
		William Morrow and Company
	Subjects
		Folklore
		Frontier and pioneer life
		Indians of North America
		Land settlement
		Northwest, Pacific
		Oregon
		United States -- Territorial expansion
		West (U.S.)
	Places
		California
		Mexico
		Northwest, Pacific
		Oregon
	Document Types
		Correspondence
		Diaries
		Financial documents
		Journals (Diaries)
		Legal documents
		Manuscripts
		Medical records
		Personal papers