Merchant, Paul

Thomas Jefferson's 1806 Message provided the U.S. Congress, the American people, and interested parties throughout the world with a summary not only of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but of the explorations William Dunbar and George Hunter on the Ouachita, and Dr. John Sibley's researches on the Red River territory, and an introduction by Jefferson. The book was first published in Washington and New York in 1806. Later in the same year, William Dunbar of Natchez, Mississippi reprinted the Message in an extremely small edition (of which this book is an edited and annotated facsimile). The Natchez edition included extracts from Dunbar's journal, as well as significant botanical observations not printed in those earlier editions. As such, the Natchez reprint is distinctly valuable in providing this unique information. The value of this Message from the President, in addition to its rarity, is in the wealth of information it provided to individuals in the early nineteenth century about the wilderness in the unknown West, and the insights provided to today's reader.

From the guide to the Editorial Files for, Jefferson's Western Explorations, 2003-2004, (Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives)

The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is a bibliography of all known printed material relating to the Lewis and Clark Expedition published in 2003. The book includes entries for works carried by Lewis and Clark, government reports, newspaper accounts, editions of the members' journals, fictitious accounts about the expedition, scientific texts based on Lewis and Clark, and post-expedition scholarship.

From the guide to the Editorial Files for The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 2003-2004, (Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives)

Paul Merchant was born in Wales and studied at Cambridge, The Shakespeare Institute, and the University of Athens. His career has been varied and has included work as a teacher, an editor, a translator, a writer, and as the archivist for the William Stafford Archives. Merchant's teaching career included stints at the University of Warwick, the University of Tennessee, and Lewis & Clark College. He has edited the plays of Thomas Heywood, essays on Wendell Berry, three posthumous William Stafford books, and two books about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He has also worked as an editor for Breitenbush Press and Oregon State University Press. Merchant's work as a translator began as the translator of the first selection of Ritsos published in England, Modern Poetry In Translation 4 (1968). He is also the translator of Eleni Vakalo’s Genealogy (1971). His recent translations from Yannis Ritsos are Monochords (Trask House Press 2007), and Twelve Poems about Cavafy (Tavern Books, 2010). Merchant collections of his own poetry include Stones (Rougemont Press, 1973), Salt Water Island (Five Seasons Press, 1983), Bone from a Stag's Heart (Five Seasons Press, 1988), and Some Business of Affinity (Five Seasons Press, 2006). Bone from a Stag’s Heart was a 1988 British Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Some Business of Affinity was a finalist for an Oregon Book Award.

This collection includes editorial correspondence with authors and staff at the Oregon State University Press. It also includes correspondence with all of the contributors to Wendell Berry (Confluence Press, 1991). These correspondents include: Wendell Berry, Mindy Weinred, Wallace Stegner, Judith Weissman, Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, Wes Jackson, Hayden Carruth, Michael Hamburger, Gregory McNamee, Mark Shadle, Jack Hicks, Herman Nibbelink, Ross Feld, Carl Esbjornson, Donald Hall, Lionel Basney, William C. Johnson, and Jeffery Alan Triggs.

From the guide to the Paul Merchant Collection, 1990-2004, (Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives)