In a noticeably hurried hand, George Bernard Shaw dashed off a letter to famed actress Ellen Terry. He was sending along the last proofs of his play Mrs. Warren’s Profession for her opinion. “The post is just going,” he wrote, “and there is no further communication with this place for 48 hours.” Having had time…
Yodel-le-hi-hoo
When you think of Austrian folksongs, perhaps like me you think of Edelweis, or lovely sweet Ländler tunes in the same style? Recently while cataloging a bound volume of Austrian dance music (I thought) from the Congress of Vienna, I ran across this imprint of three Beliebte tyroler Lieder. When I saw the first page…
You’ve Got Mail: “My ideal of an Arctic explorer”
Removed from Houghton’s copy of Sir William Edward Parry’s Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Performed in the Years 1819-20 is a clutch of letters and other papers tracing differing methods of polar exploration in the nineteenth century. First, a note from Sir George…
Valerie Fletcher Eliot (1926-2012)
The passing of Valerie Eliot last Friday evoked sadness for the loss of a good friend to the Houghton Library, and marked the breaking of our the last living link with the life and legacy of T.S. Eliot, a poet inextricably linked to Harvard University. Mrs. Eliot’s dedication to protecting and promoting Eliot’s literary legacy…
You’ve Got Mail: Gruss aus Gross-New-York!
“I am having a great time down hear in the city” -Joe Last week’s Superstorm Sandy has the New York metropolitan region on the minds and in the hearts of many these days. Thus, a little trip down memory lane to times that – at least on the surface – appeared rosier. Houghton has in…
Collecting the Counterculture
On Wednesday, November 14th, at 5.30 P.M., Houghton will host a mind-altering experience: Carl Williams, head of the Counterculture Department at the venerable firm of Maggs Bros in London (By appointment, purveyors of rare books and manuscripts to Her Majesty the Queen) will talk on a topic the Queen doesn’t collect: the Counterculture. The term…
New on OASIS in November
Finding aids for 8 newly cataloged collections, and a preliminary box list for one recent acquisition, have been added to the OASIS database this month, including sheet music relating to animals, caricatures of Gilbert & Sullivan, and William Dean Howells memorabilia. Processed by Irina Klyagin with the assistance of Andrea Cawelti: Pauline Viardot-Garcia…
You’ve Got Mail: “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose”
The process of campaigning for the position of U.S. president can be an arduous one. For Theodore Roosevelt, the 1912 presidential campaign very nearly turned deadly. TR had already served two presidential terms, from 1901-1908. Despite claiming he would never again seek that office, TR was not terribly eager to retire from public life. His…