On the 100th anniversary of his death, Houghton celebrates the life and work of William James with a major physical and online exhibition, “Life is in the Transitions”: William James, 1842-1910, guest curated by Linda Simon, Professor of English at Skidmore College. Houghton was also host to one day of a four-day symposium entitled “In…
They could have danced all night
[Thanks to Ward Project Music Cataloger Andrea Cawelti for contributing this post.] Exploding the myth that 19th century balls were sedate affairs, a new acquisition in the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection shows 12 hand-colored lithographs of various balls, ca. 1854. As one can see at a glance, the waltzes and polkas of…
Rescued from the dustbin of history
HCL News has the story on Houghton’s recent acquisition of the page proofs to Maurice Blanchot’s work The Infinite Conversation. The papers survived thanks to having been retrieved from the trash by the husband of Blanchot’s housekeeper….
New on OASIS in August
Finding aids for four newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by Monique Duhaime and Melanie Wisner: W. Clarkson (Firm) costume designs (MS Thr 571) William Berry Clarkson was born in 1861 into a family of perruquiers (wig-makers) and by the age of twelve was working in the business….
New on OASIS in July
Finding aids for two newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by Michael Austin: Johnny Green Additional Papers (MS Thr 569) Conductor, arranger, and composer Johnny Green, Harvard AB 1928, achieved early fame as a songwriter and orchestra leader in the 1920s and 1930s. Among his most well known…
The Sertenas Group: Printers and Publishers, Paris, 1540-1570
[This post written by Christopher H. Walker, a member of the cataloging faculty at Penn State University Libraries, and a Katherine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellow, 2010] The fact that French publishers of the mid-16th century formed partnerships to share printing expenses and co-distribute books is well known; but the shifting membership of these project-based partnerships…
Eliot at Harvard
The new Harvard Gazette has a full story on our exhibition on T.S. Eliot’s time at Harvard, mentioned here previously. The exhibition will be up through June 26th….
Hours of labor
[Thanks to Lake Conservator Mary Oey for contributing this post.] This is a first edition copy of Lord Byron’s Hours of Idleness, owned by Byron’s friend John Cam Hobhouse. Hobhouse bought the book and had it rebound with alternating blank interleaves, which he energetically filled with editorializing remarks and other — often snarky — comments…
The American Minstrel Show Collection
[Thanks to Senior Manuscript Cataloger Bonnie Salt for contributing this post] A large and historically important collection of American minstrelsy materials has just been cataloged for the Harvard Theatre Collection and the finding aid is now available on OASIS: American Minstrel Show Collection (MS Thr 556)…
Filling in the cracks
[Thanks to Ward cataloger Andrea Cawelti for providing the basis for this post.] Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz was an immediate hit when it was first performed in Berlin in 1821, creating strong demand for a printed score. Like nearly all musical scores of the time period, the score was printed from engraved…