William T. Vollmann canonized

The Bancroft Library at the University of California is a vast collection of rare books, manuscripts and ephemera that document the settling of the West. It also has substantial collections of illuminated manuscripts, Egyptian papyrus, early English and French manuscripts, Mark Twain letters, and writings from the Beatniks.

Now the Bancroft has decided that recent National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann deserves preservation in the pantheon. The library recently put out a call for donations of nearly all of Vollmann’s work. (I don’t think they extend this courtesy to most contemporary authors, so it’s an honor.) In particular, the library wants:

Whores for Gloria 1991

One of 20 copies handcrafted by William T. Vollmann and Ken Miller using the sheets from the Pantheon first edition.

From his Seven Dream series:

Argall, Viking 2000

The Rifles, Viking 1994

Fathers and Crows, Viking 1992

The Ice Shirt, Viking 1990

An Afghanistan Picture Show; or, How I Saved the World, Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 1992

The Atlas, Viking 1996

Butterfly Stories, Grove 1993

Expelled from Eden: a William T. Vollmann Reader

Rising Up and Rising Down San Francisco: McSweeneys, 2003 7 volumes

Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs, Pantheon 1993

You Bright and Risen Angels, Atheneum, 1987 (Bancroft has British edition, which precedes the American)