The Lonnie L. Willis Collection

“Would you sign my book?”

When Lonnie Willis, a Professor of America and English Literature at Boise State University, died in 2014 he left behind a unique and special collection of books. Whenever he went to a book-signing he would ask the author to sign it to Henry David Thoreau.

An avid reader of Thoreau since his undergraduate days, he took Thoreau’s writings to heart, and felt “electrified,” he said, by Thoreau’s life options. Standing in line in 1988 to get a copy of Shirley Du Boulay’s biography of Desmond Tutu signed by Tutu himself, he thought of the connections between Tutu and Thoreau. When he approached the Archbishop of Cape Town to have the book signed, he asked, “Would you sign my book to Henry David Thoreau?”

And so began a lifelong project to get more and more books signed to Thoreau. Not every author was willing, but many were. He found that mystery writers were the most gracious and willing of authors, although one well-known mystery writer refused, saying, “I won’t sign a book to a dead person.”

Norman Mailer found his way of getting around the conundrum of signing a book to a dead person by writing, “To Lonnie Willis by way of Thoreau.”

Many of the books he collected were simply, “To Henry “or “To Thoreau,” but then he’d get some with a bit more to them, like Tutu who wrote, “Thanks for your example,” or John Fowles’ “For Henry David Thoreau (whom life preserve),” or Bobbie Ann Mason’s sadly accurate, “Things are looking worse Henry — Peace and Courage.”

The best inscription, though, has got to be this one by Terry Tempest Williams:

Transcription:

The Walden Woods Project is grateful to Lonnie’s family for donating this one-of-a-kind collection to our Library.

1. A Bibliography of Books in the Lonnie L. Willis Collection, Signed and/or Inscribed to/For Henry David Thoreau
2. “Please, Sir, Would You Sign My Book to Henry David Thoreau?” (from Thoreau Society Bulletin, No. 241, Fall 2002)