Dates

• Majority of material found within 1927 - 1989

Extent

1 box Linear Feet (Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927-March 14, 1989) was a native of Home, Indiana County, Pennsylvania. As an author, Abbey is perhaps best known for writing The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) and Desert Solitaire (1968). His parents were Mildred Postlewait Abbey and Paul Revere Abbey. During World War Two, Edward Abbey was drafted and served in the U. S. Army from June 1945 to February 1947 in the Mediterranean Theater. After his service in the military, Edward Abbey returned to Indiana County, and began his college education at Indiana State Teachers College (ISTC, later IUP), where he majored in Secondary Education and wrote two articles in student publications between 1946 and 1948. Edward Abbey left ISTC in 1948; moving west, he wrote his first book Jonathan Troy (1954). During his writing career, Edward Abbey became known for his environmental advocacy, criticism of public land polices, and radical political views. According to his biographer James Cahalan (2001), “he was neither simply a countercultural cowboy hero nor a backward villain but, rather, a very complicated person. Almost every aspect of Abbey’s image is fraught with inaccuracy or contradiction. The popular and common critical version goes something like this: born in Home, Pennsylvania, and eventually settling in Oracle, Arizona, Abbey was one of our most important Western nature writers as well as an outrageous personality” (p. xii). After his death, Edward Abbey’s body was buried in an undisclosed location in the Cabeza Prieta Desert in Pima County, Arizona. This collection contains publications written by Edward Abbey while he was a student of Indiana State Teachers College (ISTC) from 1946 to 1948. The collection also includes articles and interviews written about Edward Abbey.)

Language of Materials

English