Tag: 19th century

Front facade of Houghton Library

Alice’s Alice

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. This recently-cataloged volume from the Santo Domingo Collection appears to be an unexceptional 1932 printing of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: the book’s illustrated covers have faded, and its acidic paper stock has gone from white to tan….

Toy Theatre

pfMS Thr 969 (3) Germany, late 19th-century Reassembled briefly prior to permanent storage by Patrick McAndrews, Graduate Student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Advanced Studies Program. Music provided by Clip Art audio. Enjoy the show. http://youtu.be/5Y-u7V8KFj0 Submitted by Vicki Denby, Curatorial Assistant.          …

Where’s Waldo?

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Daniel Chester French, (1850-1931) Ralph Waldo Emerson sits silently as a dark bronze statue, watching young Harvard scholars travel in and out of their classrooms. He sits majestically as a marble sculpture, overseeing readers at the Concord Free Public Library. He sits coyly as a forest sprite, in a corner…

Virtually Dickinson

We are very pleased to announce the launch of the Emily Dickinson Archive, http://edickinson.org, an open-access site that brings together nearly all of Emily Dickinson’s extant poetry manuscripts. A collaborative effort across many institutions, the resource provides readers with images of manuscripts held in multiple libraries and archives, and also offers an array of transcriptions…

Be our guest, be our guest…

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends is a volume by Samuel Tuke who was a Quaker and mental-health reformer in early 19th-century England.  Tuke believed in this new…

New information about Emily Dickinson’s furniture

This past spring, Houghton Library collaborated with the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst and the North Bennet Street School in Boston to create exact reproductions of the writing desk and bureau originally in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom in the Homestead. Since 1950, the two iconic pieces have been part of the Emily Dickinson Collection at the…

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…

Brides and Brigands

How to spot a Norwegian bride?  Just look for the crown!  This 19th century hand colored cabinet photograph depicts a Norwegian bride wearing a traditional folk costume with a bridal crown or brudekrone.  You will notice the bridal crown has small metal discs and beads hanging from it which produce a melodic tinkling and according…