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 embraces politics, the occult, avant-garde art, film, literature, drug culture, rock and roll, alternative lifestyles; and individuals and groups such as the Beats, Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley, Guy Debord, Black Panthers, Hippies, Yippies, surrealists, Hell’s Angels, and more.
The talk is in conjunction with the Library’s current exhibition, From Austen to Zola: Amy Lowell as a Collector, which examines why, how, and what collectors collect.
It also celebrates the arrival at Harvard of the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection, probably the world’s largest private collection of counterculture material.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Modern Books and Manuscript Department, houghton_modern@harvard.edu, at Houghton.