Mitzi Myers, 62; Literary Scholar

As an internationally known authority on children’s literature, Mitzi Myers wrote more than 75 scholarly articles and book reviews.

The longtime UCLA lecturer presented papers at scores of scholarly conferences, edited anthologies of children’s literature and contributed entries on children’s literature to the Encyclopedia Americana and the Cambridge Companion to Children’s Literature.

Over the years, Myers amassed a personal library of some 35,000 books, many of them rare and nearly all of them annotated.

“You couldn’t even walk through the house, she had so many books,” said her sister, Patsy Myers. “They were like children to her.”

That explains why, when a fire ripped through Mitzi Myers’ Fullerton home in August 2000, she repeatedly reentered the burning house to save her precious books.

Most of the books were lost, along with the manuscripts for two books she was writing and two other volumes she was editing.

Myers, who suffered second- and third-degree burns and had been on medical leave from UCLA since then, died at her home in Anaheim Hills on Nov. 5 of complications from the pneumonia she contracted in the wake of the fire that left her disabled. She was 62.

“So much of Mitzi’s identity was lost with the destruction of her life’s work,” said Thomas Wortham, chairman of UCLA’s English department. “She never could recover, though she struggled heroically.”

As a scholar, Myers was known as an authority on 18th century and early 19th century female authors, many of whom wrote for children.

Said Andrea Immel, curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton and a friend of Myers: “Of her many contributions, I’d say perhaps the most important is that she showed that children’s literature had a long history--that modern children’s literature did not begin in 1865 with the appearance of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ”

At UCLA, Myers taught popular classes in children’s literature and young adult literature. She urged her students to study more than just the text.

“Rips, dirt, spills, uncensored comments, drawings and scribbles, rude jokes and missing pages--in these ‘defacements’ we discover the hidden history of childhood,” she wrote in a paper presented to the Modern Language Assn. last December.

Myers was considered a tireless champion of UCLA’s renowned Children’s Book Collection, which includes a treasure trove of American and English juvenilia: children’s toys, games and puzzles dating to the 1700s.

At UCLA, Myers also taught and developed curricula in basic writing skills for undergraduates. Although associated for more than 20 years with UCLA’s English department and Writing Programs, Myers also taught writing at Scripps College, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Long Beach, Chapman University, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State San Bernardino and UC Santa Barbara.

“The key for Mitzi was teaching students to appreciate language, because she loved language,” said Cheryl Giuliano, former director of UCLA’s Writing Programs.

And she loved books.

“They were just a necessary part of life to her, and she was like that when she was a small child,” said Patsy Myers.

Born in Sulpher Springs, Texas, Myers received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Texas State University. While doing graduate studies at Rice University in Houston, her interest in early feminist writers led to her passion for children’s literature.

As a scholar, Myers was particularly interested in Hannah More, an 18th century English reformer; Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th century English feminist and mother of Mary Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein”; and Maria Edgeworth, an 18th century Irish novelist and children’s book author.

When the fire destroyed her home, Myers was writing two books about Edgeworth and editing an annotated version of two Edgeworth novels.

Patsy Myers said that her sister’s house in Fullerton has been rebuilt and that she had been looking forward to moving into it later this month and getting back to work.

“She essentially wanted a bedroom and a kitchen, with the rest to be for books and her work,” said Myers, her sister’s sole survivor. “I’ve never known anyone who loved her work better.”

Myers’ husband, Dennis Hengeveld, a professor of English at Cal State Fullerton, died in 1983.

A memorial will be held at a later date.