[Thanks to Jean Jonassaint, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Syracuse University, for contributing this guest post about a recently digitized Houghton item.] Although originally published in 1804 in Dessalines (then capital of Hayti), it is with their second edition by Saint-Remy (Paris, 1851), that Boisrond-Tonnerre’s Mémoires were passed on to posterity. Until…
A pair of impostors
[Thanks to Renzo Baldasso, Oliver Duntze, and John Lancaster for contributing this collaborative post about a discovery made at Houghton, with additional assistance from Daniel De Simone, Eric White, and Robert Betteridge.] A recent discovery of facsimile leaves, printed on vellum in the 1560s to supply a lack in an incunable, nicely illustrates the benefits…
Outfitting the Enterprise
The buzz around Houghton’s newly acquired “Star Trek” guide sent some of us digging in the Theatre Collection for more sci-fi offerings. Thanks solely to a 1988 gift from Harvard alumnus Robert Fletcher ‘45, we were not disappointed….
What’s New: Colorful Adventures
Two recent acquisitions in the Early Modern Books and Manuscripts department have plenty of colorful adventures, both literally and metaphorically. The first is a card game (call number pFB7.L5633.G800g) based on the classic picaresque novel L’Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain Rene Le Sage, first published in 1715. Houghton already holds a set…
What’s New: “Boston’s Crusade Against Slavery” exhibition opens
During the Civil War era Boston led the national crusade against slavery and the struggle over emancipation and citizenship. Owing largely to activists in Boston, Massachusetts became one of the first states to end slavery. It soon granted black men full suffrage, ended the ban on interracial marriage, and in 1855 became the first state…
For Philip Hofer, because he loves Maine
The present book is a copy of the fifth edition of Country By-Ways (Typ 870.87.4665) a collection of stories about life and nature in Maine, written by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909). Its green and brown cloth cover, for the dominant colors of Maine in Jewett’s sketches, was designed by Sarah Wyman Whitman, a close friend…
The birth of a score
Researching the publication history of music scores can be a difficult venture. Materials documenting the business end of contracting, engraving or lithographing, proof-reading, and finally printing an edition are often lost to history, but occasionally, a shining gem of documentation will appear out of nowhere. Recently, I had the good fortune to dine with Michael…
New on OASIS in May
Finding aids for seven newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including the Marian Hannah Winter and Rose Winter Memorial Collection of Prints, a rich collection of images documenting the history of all kinds of theatrical performance from the 17th to 20th centuries….