Hal O'Brien describes himself as an "independent scholar", an all-too-rare breed these days.

He graduated from Midland School in Los Olivos, California, in 1981. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 1986. His major was in Government. ("My college was too wise to label politics a science.")

He's been known to say, I've been on Wikipedia so long, I can remember when most edits added actual information or citations, instead of redundant filler such as templates or "citation needed."

He's the kind of guy who has a copy of Bernard Rudofsky's Are Clothes Modern? that was once owned by Elia Kazan; a copy of Ezra Pound's Guide to Kulchur that was once owned by Sir John Kendrew; a letter from Arthur Quiller-Couch to Siegfried Sassoon; a page from Shakespeare's Second Folio; and he thinks he's lucky beyond measure to have stuff that pleases him so.

Everything is provisional, pending better data.

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The images below have been created by O'Brien, and used in various articles:

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