[Thanks to Lake Conservator Mary Oey for contributing this post.] This is a first edition copy of Lord Byron’s Hours of Idleness, owned by Byron’s friend John Cam Hobhouse. Hobhouse bought the book and had it rebound with alternating blank interleaves, which he energetically filled with editorializing remarks and other — often snarky — comments…
The American Minstrel Show Collection
[Thanks to Senior Manuscript Cataloger Bonnie Salt for contributing this post] A large and historically important collection of American minstrelsy materials has just been cataloged for the Harvard Theatre Collection and the finding aid is now available on OASIS: American Minstrel Show Collection (MS Thr 556)…
Filling in the cracks
[Thanks to Ward cataloger Andrea Cawelti for providing the basis for this post.] Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz was an immediate hit when it was first performed in Berlin in 1821, creating strong demand for a printed score. Like nearly all musical scores of the time period, the score was printed from engraved…
Etruschi
[This post was written by Craig Eliason, Katherine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellow, 2010] The history of printing types is full of confusing labels for the varied letterform designs that have emerged over the centuries. The complicated nomenclature devised for what are now most commonly called sans-serif types is a case in point. Sans-serif letters, as…
Most Likely to Succeed
A new exhibition in Houghton’s Chaucer Case celebrates the 100th anniversary of T.S. Eliot’s graduation from Harvard. See the Houghton Modern blog for more details on Class Notes: The Centenary of T.S. Eliot at Harvard 1910-2010….
William James symposium registration opens
This fall, Houghton will present an exhibition “Life is in the Transitions”: William James, 1842-1910 in commemoration of the centenary of James’s death. The exhibition opening coincides with a conference organized by the William James Society, co-sponsored by the Houghton Library, and the Chocorua Community Association, “In the Footsteps of William James: a Symposium on…
Hofer Prize winners announced
Harvard graduate student Philipp Penka was awarded first place in this year’s competition for the Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art, for his collection of works published by Russian displaced persons following World War II. The Hofer Prize, named for a former Houghton curator and donor, is awarded each year to the Harvard…
Who’s got the Button? Houghton!
The highlight of the recent auction at Sotheby’s of items from the James S. Copley Library was a letter signed by Button Gwinnett. Gwinnett’s is a name that is familiar mostly only to autograph collectors: he was one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Because he died in a duel less than…
Telescopes are prudent / In an emergency
For the next two weeks, the Woodberry Poetry Room will be home to an art installation that celebrates the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Created by Adams House art tutor Zachary Sifuentes, “Fugitive Sparrows” literally offers a number of new ways of looking at Dickinson’s poems, including small placards placed in the yard below, viewable through…
Rare photograph discovered at Houghton
Conservators at Weissman Preservation Center have discovered that a photograph from the William James collection was made with the rare Kallitype process, a predecessor to gelatin silver prints. Read the full story at Harvard College Library News….