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…
You’ve Got Mail: A British Artist Worthy of the Name
Today marks the 116th anniversary of the death of Frederick Barnard. “Frederick who?” you might well ask. Though he’s not well known today, in late nineteenth-century London Fred Barnard was a highly regarded illustrator, caricaturist, and painter. He was considered one of the best “black and white artists” of his day. His pen and ink…
That Toddlin’ Time
Nineteen thirty was a mighty good year for social dance. Sure, the economic world had crashed in 1929, but the Depression hadn’t hit yet, and the growth of radio in the 1920s coupled with the rise of the Talkies since The Jazz Singer in 1927 insured that the popular dance music of the day inundated…
October Brings Two Winship Lectures
We are preparing for two George Parker Winship lectures this semester, one by Robert De Maria (25 October 2012) and the other by Roger Stoddard (11 October 2012). These will be the 95th and 96th lectures that were inaugurated under the fund established by the John Barnard Associates. Stoddard’s topic is “How I Found the…
You’ve Got Mail: An Unfortunate Candidate
On September 8, 1827, the French printer-lithographer J. Cluis wrote to the members of the jury for the Exhibition of Industrial Products (“Exposition des produits de l’Industrie”) to present his invention of “autography” (“autographie”). Little is known about Cluis except that he was active as a printer-lithographer from the 1820s to the 1840s in Paris,…
R.E.S. Ipsa Loquitur
Friends of Houghton Library will be pleased to learn that former Curator of Rare Books, Roger Eliot Stoddard, has presented to the Library a copy of his A Bibliographical Description of Books and Pamphlets of American Verse Printed from 1610 through 1820 published earlier this year by the Penn State University Press for the Bibliographical…
Our Two-Year Aeoniversary
It’s the two-year anniversary of the online Special Collections Request Account system (Aeon) at Harvard! Aeon is being used many in Harvard special collections including those at the Fine Arts Library, Loeb Music Library, and Harvard-Yenching. Here at Houghton Library, the largest Aeon user at Harvard, we moved completely into the world of electronic requests…
You’ve Got Mail: When the check isn’t in the mail
Sometime in late 1926 William Faulkner wrote to publisher and fellow poet William Stanley Braithwaite for help. The Boston-based publisher of his first book of verse, The Marble Faun, owed him $81 in unpaid royalties. For months his letters to the Four Seas Company had gone unanswered, save for confirmation that his one certified letter…