Category: Collections in Focus

The Department of Printing and Graphic Arts recently acquired this hollow-cut silhouette in an oval shape of approximately 3½ x 5”. The inscription below the silhouette identifies the maker as “Williams,” referring to one of the few African-American silhouettists known of the nineteenth century, Moses Williams (1777-ca.1825). An inscription in the same hand on the…

Houghton Library recently acquired two autograph letters written by William Morris (1834-1896) the English designer, author, visionary socialist and proprietor of the Kelmscott Press. These letters are especially appealing because they are both hitherto unknown and unpublished, and addressed to an individual not known to have corresponded with Morris until these letters surfaced at auction…

André Meyer (1884-1974) began buying music and music-related materials at an early age, and at his death left a spectacular collection, a portion of which was recently sold at Sotheby’s. Houghton Library was lucky enough to acquire ten lots. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755). Les voyages de l’Amour : ballet en quatre actes. This Boismortier…

Melville’s marginalia is a hot topic in American literary studies, and inquiry is kept fresh in the field when annotated books from his library turn up on the market. Sometimes they do so in interesting and surprising ways. Melville’s copy of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, acquired in London in 1849, appeared on the tables of…

Finding aids for four newly cataloged collections, and a preliminary box list for one recent acquisition, were added to the OASIS database this month, including movie and television scripts and theatrical portraits. Processed by Ashley M. Nary: Theatrical Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured Portraits, 1812-1848 (MS Thr 933) For more on this collection, see this…

The Hyde Collection of Samuel Johnson holds some 75 letters written by James Boswell, but this just-acquired, previously unpublished letter to Boswell’s brother David perhaps outshines them all. When he wrote to David, then living in Valencia, Spain, in November of 1776, it was his first letter in several years. To one who has such…

A recent acquisition from Leo Cadogan Rare Books of London continues a Houghton Library tradition that was articulated by Roger Stoddard’s Marks in Books Illustrated and Explained and published by the Library in 1985. Stoddard’s exhibition catalogue demonstrates the value of evidentiary traces of use that can survive in books and tell us about their…

In a rare document recently added to the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection at the Harvard Theatre Collection, the long journey from youthful economic immigrant to established middle-aged citizen is traced in just a few lines of text….

A new acquisition in in the Early Modern Books and Manuscripts Department shows the inner workings of what one might think of as the 18th century precursor to Craigslist: the Universal Register Office. The Office was founded in 1751 by Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate who played a crucial role in creating London’s first…

[Thanks to William Stoneman, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library, for contributing this post.] I am pleased to announce a major acquisition of a collection of sixteenth-century annotated books from the English bookseller Roger Gaskell. Ann M. Blair, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and Harvard College Professor, encouraged this acquisition. She is the author…