The Liberty Fund is following a plan first devised by Thomas Hollis over 200 years ago and making available “once again a selection of titles originally distributed to the colonies by one of the most remarkable philanthropists and supporters of American independence, the eighteenth-century Englishman Thomas Hollis.” Hollis (1720-1774) distributed books and pamphlets, to Harvard…
Visualizing Edward Lear
[Thanks to Matthew Battles, Senior Researcher at metaLAB, for contributing this post on the new Edward Lear Visualizer.] I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but let me just get this out: a library is no mere set of bookshelves, no simple windowpane through which to view the wonders of books and the discoveries…
You’ve Got Mail: Princesses Say the Darnedest Things
In this week’s mail bag, a touch of levity and an epic scandal. A letter to American raconteur Alexander Woollcott from British author Marie Belloc Lowndes dated April 28, 1937, begins, “Dearest Alec, Here are two little news stories of those royal children.” I wish I’d come across this letter back in June during the…
W.H. Ireland’s Original Shakespeare Forgeries Identified
As the Curator of the Hyde Collection, I’m very pleased that the distinguished antiquarian bookseller Arthur Freeman has shared with us an exciting discovery about the significance of an item in the collection. The Shakespeare forgeries of William Henry Ireland have long intrigued scholars and captured the public imagination. But Ireland’s practice later in life…
You’ve Got Mail: “A sort of crisis came in my life”
Harriet Beecher Stowe was paid $300 for 40 installments of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly by the Free Soil newspaper National Era, which began running them in June 1851. Encouraged by their success, Stowe decided to publish them as a novel, and the first edition, published by the Boston firm of John…
Lions, and Tigers, and Bears? Oh my!
“If you go down in the woods today you better not go alone It’s lovely down in the woods today but safer to stay at home” Don’t blame composer John Walter Bratton if your children are scared by these song lyrics. Composed in 1907, Bratton’s The Teddy Bears Picnic did not actually contain any…
You’ve Got Mail: Your Illustrious Lordship’s Most Obliged Servant, Galileo Galilei
The recipient of this 1601 Galileo letter is Giovanni Battista Strozzi, a member of a wealthy and powerful Florentine family, whose status is reflected in the flattery Galileo lavishes on a poem Strozzi has sent him. The very beautiful poem and the most pleasing letter from you, Sir, have given me double contentment, the latter…
You’ve Got Mail: The Letters of Edmund Kean to Charlotte Cox
In a post to this blog on August 31st we highlighted a letter from Diana to Duff Cooper written on 25 November 1925 in which she describes her experiences visiting Harvard and the Harvard Theatre Collection. In that letter she wrote that “the best things that I struck were original love letters from Edmund Kean…
New on OASIS in October
Finding aids for 11 newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including theatrical window cards, playbills and posters for magicians, and photographs of the 1921 Pilgrim Tercentenary Pageant held in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Processed by Ashley M. Nary: Sheet Music Featuring Commercial Products, Stores, and Hotels, 1849-1935 (MS Thr 891) Sheet…