Cataloging has recently been completed on the Harvard Theatre Collection’s Tennessee Williams Additional Papers, 1946-1983, ( MS Thr 550.) Details can be found in the finding aid created by senior manuscripts cataloger Bonnie B. Salt.
These papers join a wealth of Tennessee Williams material at the Houghton Library and the Harvard Theatre Collection, most notably the 
Tennessee Williams papers, 1932-1983 (MS Thr 397.)
In honor of Samuel Johnson’s 300th birthday, Houghton is presenting an exhibition of the Donald & Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson for the first time since its arrival at Houghton in 2004. The exhibition will be on display in Houghton’s Edison & Newman Room through November 14th, and is accompanied by an online version of the exhibition. A published catalog will be available from Harvard University Press in 2009.
Houghton’s Technical Services Department today announced that it had added its 2000th finding aid to the OASIS database, Harvard’s online catalog of archival and manuscript collections. The Mary M. Engel collection of “filleuls de guerre” letters is a collection of letters from World War I soldiers to their “godmother” and pen pal, Mary Engel. For more information, see the article at HCL News.
“Public Poet, Private Man: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at 200″ has won the 2009 Leab Award for Best Online Exhibition from the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. All of us at Houghton extend our congratulations to the Modern Books and Manuscripts Department, guest exhibition curator Christoph Irmscher, and the web design team in the Harvard College Library Communications Office.
Cataloging is now complete on our collection of the papers of the influential thinker and Harvard philosophy professor Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000). At over 80 boxes, there is a wealth of information on Quine’s life and work. I might stop by to have a look at Series IIE, “Crank letters sent to Quine” (his categorization, not ours).
There’s a capsule biography of Quine in the finding aid, but for more information, see the very detailed web page organized by his son.
He may be best known as a creator of modern detective fiction, but there is more to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle than Sherlock Holmes. A new exhibition, “Ever Westward’: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in American Culture,” which opened May 5 at Houghton Library, hopes to paint a fuller picture of Doyle’s contributions to world literature, which range from historical fiction to personal memoir to science fiction and beyond.
via Doyle’s Literary Legacy Explored – HCL News – Harvard College Library.
From Thursday, May 7 to Saturday, May 9, Houghton will also be hosting a symposium, “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Sesquicentennial Assessment,” which aims, among other things, to broaden understanding of Doyle, examine canonical and non-canonical writings, and to witness Doyle’s literary legacy.
We’ve just updated the page for our upcoming symposium Johnson At 300 with the registration form, schedule of events, and hotel information. We’ve got an outstanding lineup of participants, and of course we’ll be opening the first exhibition of the Hyde Collection since it arrived at Houghton. I hope you can join us.
The newest in a series of online collections from Harvard University, Expeditions and Discoveries delivers maps, photographs, and published materials, as well as field notes, letters, and a unique range of manuscript materials on selected expeditions between 1626 and 1953.
In honor of John Ashbery’s receipt of the 2009 Harvard Arts medal, Houghton Library is presenting an exhibition in the Chaucer case from 28 April until 16 May. Entitled, “John Ashbery: A Glimpse of the Archive,” the exhibition features a selection of books, manuscripts, and photographs from the poet’s papers held at Houghton Library. Stop by on the ground floor of Houghton to explore the work and life of this honored poet and Harvard alumnus (1949).
Houghton Library has recently acquired turn of the twentieth century children’s stories on the history of Mexico. Details, including images, at the Houghton Modern Books and Manuscripts blog.
