The collected papers on Addison Mizner includes letters, manuscripts, rare books, and scrapbooks. A significant part of this collection are telegrams and letters towards the end of Mizner’s life in 1933. Many telegrams are from his brother Wilson, who lived in Los Angeles at the time, and other friends who were concerned about the state of Mizner’s failing health. There are also notes from clients Gurnee Munn, Amy Phipps, and Eva Stotesbury.

Mizner wrote many detailed letters to his mother Ella during his travels to the Canadian Yukon to prospect for gold. He illustrated a few of these letters and the few illustrations are stored separately from preservation. Of particular interest are Mizner’s observations of his fellow travelers, how he and his brothers passed the few hours of down time, and the extreme weather conditions. He also describes in detail their passage through the pacific northwest, “all day long people sat on deck and watched the mammoth mountains with their snow and glaciers, as we passed within a stone’s throw.” He comments on the often violent and turbulent world for prospectors whose lives ended during their journeys, “The more I see of the world, the less my troubles seem, when compared with a day’s tragedy for instance.”

Mizner’s mother Ella Watson Mizner did extensive research on the Mizner family. This box includes extracts from a manuscript family bible and a handwritten family tree. A letter dated 1894 from Lansing Mizner to Ella is particularly romantic and illuminates their courtship. Mizner’s brother Wilson Mizner (1876-1933) was playwright who is best known for his play The Deep Purple. Much of the correspondence here is from Wilson to Addison Mizner’s assistant Madena Galloway toward the end of Addison’s life. There are also drafts of Wilson’s work, poems, and comic drawings.