Highlights in this installment of newly digitized works include a manuscript J.E. Bach sonata, the original drawings for woodcuts in a 1550 book, a 1785 treatise on ballooning, and a detailed 16th century map of Constantinople….
New Digitization Roundup, Part III
More newly digitized complete works and substantial collections. Highlights this week include a 1485 hunting manuscript with beautiful miniatures, compositions by Pauline Viardot-García, and biographies of sideshow performers….
Emily Dickinson’s Music Book (EDR 469)
In her formative years, the American poet Emily Dickinson’s interests centered on the study of voice and especially piano, for which she displayed considerable accomplishment and ambition. Her correspondence supplies the background for these activities while the contents of her music book provides a revealing perspective on just how assiduously and enthusiastically she collected, listened…
New on OASIS in September
Finding aids for seven newly cataloged collections, and a preliminary box list for one recent acquisition, have been added to the OASIS database this month, including a scrapbook of Theodore Roosevelt’s time at Harvard, a collection of playbills for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the recordings of the Phone-A-Poem project. Processed by Michael W. Austin: Christophe…
The works of David Gasgoyne
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. The Santo Domingo collection is broad in scope, but its many volumes also accommodate exhaustive collecting of a number of particular authors. Among these is David Gascoyne (1916-2001), the British poet and translator known for his association with…
New Digitization Roundup, Part II
This week’s roundup includes an unfinished manuscript by Alexandre Dumas, a 1609 Shakespeare quarto, and the uncut 7-volume manuscript of an early-20th century utopian novel….
What’s New: Méhul figures some bass
John M. Ward, one of the Theatre Collection’s most generous donors, cherished great admiration for the composers who survived the French Revolution. Cherubini, Paër, and Méhul were particular favorites, and Ward collected their music extensively. Believing as he did that keeping one’s head through such interesting times demanded special characteristics, he hoped that the materials…
New Digitization Roundup, Part I
It’s been a while since we updated you on the new digitization activity that is constantly going on here at Houghton, so here is a sampling of some of the items we’ve recently digitized in their entirety. This batch includes papers from the Dreyfus Affair, a Tchaikovsky score, and letters from the journalist and radical…
“Footprints on the sands of time”
Rejecting the Psalmist’s solemn emphasis on death and the life hereafter, Cambridge poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “A Psalm of Life” famously exhorts his readers to seize the day and leave their mark in this world: Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints…
Reading Ira Aldridge
Readers of The New Yorker may have noticed the recent article by Alex Ross on the great 19th century African-American actor and expatriate Ira Aldridge and his daughter Luranah. An abundance of related material (printed books, ephemera, manuscripts – even an entire extra-illustrated album devoted to Aldridge and formerly owned by Augustin Daly) can be…