Vardis and Opal Fisher Papers, 1934-1996

The largest portion of this collection consists of approximately 300 letters written by Vardis Fisher to his son Grant, chiefly in the 1950s and 60s. The letters discuss personal and family concerns and the business of writing and publishing, but little of literary matters. (Vardis Fisher donated most of his literary papers to Yale University.) A few other letters, including some by Vardis Fisher's son Wayne and some by Opal Fisher, are intermingled with Vardis Fisher's.

The collection contains a few other letters by Vardis Fisher, including one (dated 1953) to the Caxton Printers, publishers of his Testament of Man series. Fisher responds to the publisher's objections to his yet-unpublished novel, Jesus Came Again (Box 1, Folder 2). Their differences could not be resolved, and Caxton quit publishing the series.

Perhaps the most important single item in this group is Vardis Fisher's account book (Box 6), begun in 1940 when he and Opal moved to Hagerman. Entries continue until June 1968, three weeks before his death. In the book Fisher recorded income and expenses, including the expenses in building the cabin and home place in 1940. Fisher's income fluctuated from year to year, but over the time he kept the account book, his income was derived from five main sources: stock dividends, interest, book royalties, sale of his newspaper column, and farm operations. In 1960, Fisher made a record of the status of rights to all of his books. He noted that he did not want three books ever to be reprinted: Sonnets to an Imaginary Madonna, Forgive Us Our Virtues, and Neurotic Nightingale. Loose clippings, as well as clippings taped into the book, reflect Fisher's continuing interest with the state of the American economy, particularly the rate of inflation and the consumer price index. So concerned was Fisher with the inflation rate, that when he sold some land to a neighbor and financed the sale himself, he inserted an inflation clause into the contract. If inflation exceeded ten percent before the principal of the loan was paid, the purchaser would have to pay an additional ten percent above the agreed-upon purchase price. Vardis and Opal Fisher also made entries in a diary during part of 1963. That book is located in Box 7. In it, they mainly recorded professional expenses, including the costs of food and drink for entertaining visiting scholars.

Vardis Fisher's papers also include more than two hundred reviews of his books, principally Mountain Man, Orphans in Gethsemanae, Pemmican, Suicide or Murder?, and Tale of Valor. Most of these reviews were clipped from newspapers across the country by a clipping service. For preservation purposes, the Library has made photocopies of these reviews on archival paper. The collection also contain copies of Fisher's weekly column from the Idaho newspaper Statewide from December 1946 until September 1952 (the entire year 1950 excepted), and a few later columns from the Gooding, Idaho, Leader. These clippings have also been photocopied.

NOTE: Box 5 contains letters from Vardis Fisher to his son, Grant Fisher, and other family correspondence. Includes letters written by Opal Fisher after Vardis Fisher's death.

Most of the papers of Opal Fisher date from the period after Vardis Fisher's death, although there are a few files that contain earlier material, and four that contain papers of Vardis Fisher intermixed with Opal's own. (Her correspondence files for George F. Day, Joseph M. Flora, the Authors Guild, and Doubleday contain some letters to and from Vardis Fisher.) Opal Fisher's papers, on the whole, relate mainly to the reprinting and marketing of Vardis Fisher's books, recovering publication rights, and to her dealings with Warner Brothers regarding the movie Jeremiah Johnson.

In a 1977 letter to book review editors (Box 3, Folder 4), Opal Fisher explained why she entered the publishing business. Reprinting Fishers books was a means of "keeping Vardis close in a most satisfying way." She saw it as her duty to "protect the books as well I could....For me, the books were alive and warm, a part of Vardis that lived on, and deserved my best effort on their own merit, quite aside from my deep emotional investment in the man who wrote them." Under the imprint Opal Laurel Holmes, Mrs. Fisher reprinted Children of God, Dark Bridwell, The Mothers, Mountain Man, and Sonnets to an Imaginary Madonna. She wrote and designed the book covers and contracted for the printing of the books herself. Her files on Children of God and Mountain Man are the most extensive. Opal Fisher did not sell many of the books she reprinted, however. When she died, there were more than 20,000 books in her garage and in storage, most in unopened cartons. When her estate was settled, these were divided between the Idaho Center for the Book (at Boise State University) and Albertsons College of Idaho.

In 1972, Pocket Books issued Mountain Man in a mass-market paperback edition that was linked to the release of the movie Jeremiah Johnson. It featured a photo of Robert Redford on the cover. By 1979, slightly more than 500,000 copies had been sold. Opal Fisher earned more than $56,000 in royalties (Box 3, Folder 26). Included in her papers relating to Mountain Man are royalty statements and a bibliography she typed of the books Vardis Fisher consulted while writing the book (Box 3, Folder 20). Other posthumous printings of Vardis Fisher books included a mass-market paperback edition of City of Illusion (Ace Books) and a trade paperback edition of The Mothers (Swallow Press).

The correspondence files with Warner Brothers concerning the motion picture Jeremiah Johnson (Box 2, Folders 28 to 31) reveal Opal Fisher's determination to see her husband's work recognized. The surviving files are apparently incomplete, because the papers contain references to letters and documents that are not present in the existing record. From what survives, however, it appears that director Sydney Pollack's acknowledgment of a debt to the Fisher novel Mountain Man came rather late in the production process, and only after an exchange of correspondence and telephone calls with Opal Fisher. Pollack asserted that the motion picture was based "loosely on the novel Crow Killer by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker" (Box 2, Folder 30), but after letters and talks with Mrs. Fisher, he requested rights to use "portions" of Mountain Man in exchange for $5,000 and a premiere showing in Idaho. The letters in the files between Mrs. Fisher, Pollack, and Warner Brothers officials are, on the whole, friendly, but in a letter of August 24, 1972, Opal Fisher refers to an early charge of plagiarism (Box 2, Folder 29).

Opal Fisher also challenged scholars and writers when she did not agree with their interpretations of her husband's life and work. Her papers contain strongly-stated disagreements with Di Bowler (Box 2, Folder 4), Mick McAllister (Box 2, Folders 9 and 10), John Milton (Box 3, Folder 1, and Box 7), and Leonard Arrington (Box 3, Folder 3). In Milton's case, Mrs. Fisher was critical of his editing of the tape-recorded interview that appeared in the book Three West: Conversations with Vardis Fisher, Max Evans, Michael Straight (1970). She drafted a detailed response to the published interview and created a mock-up of a booklet in refutation entitled "Expose'". In Arrington's case, Mrs. Fisher responded to his reference to Fisher's Mormon background by publishing a pamphlet entitled Vardis Fisher Was Not A Mormon (1979).

Also included in the papers is a numbered listing of 200 purchasers and potential purchasers of Vardis Fisher's books (Box 3, Folder 6). The numbers appear to correspond to those in the numbered editions of Fisher's books published by Alan Swallow.

Finally, a handwritten note in Opal Fisher's papers, written on a piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook, sheds some light on her own thinking regarding the nature of Vardis Fisher's death. Opal Fisher wrote: When the time came...[Fisher] resolved it in characteristic fashion. He walked deliberately to that door, forbidden by church and secular law; paused briefly to thumb his nose all around; opened the door with a key of seconal and gin, and strode out. The play was over. It was a dignified exit, and the star was nine feet tall. (Box 3, Folder 3)

Boxes 4 and 9 contains photos of Vardis Fisher, his home, some miscellaneous subjects, and stills from the motion picture Jeremiah Johnson. Rights for the movie stills remain with Warner Brothers; the copies in these files are for reference purposes only. Permission to copy and/or publish them must be obtained from Warner Brothers. Photos 014-028 were among the papers taken from the Hagerman home returned anonymously to Grant Fisher.

Also included are still prints that were reproduced in the book Rediscovering Vardis Fisher: Centennial Essays (University of Idaho Press, 2000). Consult a copy of the book to view the images. Rights to photos lent by other repositories are retained by those institutions. Consult an archivist for further information.

Photocopies for reference use have been made of the photographs listed below. Patrons are asked to consult these copies rather than the originals in Box 4.