Melville lived in obscurity in Manhattan for the last decades of his life. Though in his later years he occasionally received notes from admirers and autograph collectors, at the time of his final illness in 1891, few in the New York literary world knew he was still alive. The reputation of the author of Moby-Dick, however, soared in the 1920s in what is known as the Melville Revival, and he is now regarded as one of the great American writers. The brief but intriguing autograph-seeker’s prize described here shows pre-Revival interest in Melville among some collectors. The Fearing Collection, with substantial holdings on commercial fisheries and recreational fishing, quite naturally contains several first editions of Melville’s works. There are other riches too for Melvilleans: the logbook of the whaler Acushnet for the voyage immediately after the one Melville took on her in 1841 and a significant number of whaling novels, including the only recorded copy of Wharton The Whale-Killer!, a “novelette” quoted by Melville in the Extracts at the beginning of Moby-Dick.

When editors prepare a second edition of Correspondence, they will have a few challenges in handling this note. The text is simple enough. Even Melville’s notoriously difficult handwriting is at its tamest here.

                    Pittsfield, Feb: 16th

Dear Sir: Herewith is a Dedication
which I hope you will find to answer
the purpose you mention in your
note received last night.
                    Very truly Yours,
                    H Melville

But questions abound. To whom was Melville writing? In what year did this exchange take place? What is the nature of the “Dedication,” and what was the purpose mentioned in the initial request? Both what is missing from the note and what is present in it raise questions and suggest possibilities. Scenarios, full or partial, can and inevitably will be spun.

For example: This may well be a very rare instance of Melville responding to a letter by writing on it. If that is what is going on, Melville received a letter sent from Pittsfield and dated February 7 and then responded to it on February 16 from Pittsfield, where he lived with his family from 1850 to 1863. If the letter to Melville was written on February 7, his comment that the note was “received last night” may suggest that he was out of town when the note was delivered. He would have made a point of being home on February 16 because that was the birthday of Malcolm, his first child, born in 1849. Several years in the mid-1850s may be candidates for this pattern of travel away from and back to Pittsfield in early February, and this possibility fits nicely with a fatherly interest in celebrating with family the birthday of a five- or six-year-old boy.

Whatever is meant by “Dedication,” the years in which this note was likely written, as well as the tenor of the note itself, suggest that this is not an exchange with his publishers. Is Melville simply responding to a fan’s request, imprecisely phrased, for an autograph note or for a copy of a book by Melville inscribed/”dedicated” by its author? Imprecision in the original request may account for the hedged and hoping-this-is-what-you-want response.

My hope is that Melville enthusiasts will find for this little note other scenarios to answer their own purposes.

Very truly Yours,

D Marnon

This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag.

[Thanks to Dennis Marnon, Administrative Officer, for contributing this post.]

[Thanks to Ryan Wheeler, Bibliographic Assistant, for contributing this post.]

[H]enceforth I shall take what comes from one of them as coming from the whole Society … [I]t may happen that Father Bourdin, not to have the shame of retracting, and of allowing the denial to remain with him, will be very glad to send me objections, however bad they may be, in order to gain time and make me lose it. But when they see that the honor of the whole Society is at stake, I think they will prefer to make him hold his tongue, because I know very well he has nothing good to say.

Descartes then turns to a question of physics, with a small explanatory diagram in the margin:

You ask how I know that the bullet coming from D towards B returns to E, rather than continuing towards B. I learn this from the knowledge of the laws of nature, one of which is that “whatever is, remains in the same place in which it is, unless it be changed by some external cause,” thus … what is once in motion is always in motion until something stops it.

Houghton also holds a 1647 letter from Descartes to Mersenne, and it too has been digitized.

This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag.

[This post was contributed by John Overholt, Acting Curator of the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Early Modern Books and Manuscripts.]

Great Britain Exchequer Payment Memoranda, 1665-1666 (MS Eng 1678)

Processed by Ashley M. Nary:

Souvenir Programs of Contemporary Personalities, 1880-1993 (MS Thr 737)

Processed by Bonnie B. Salt:

Mary Stedman Williams Winslow Correspondence, 1901-1940 (MS Am 800.40)

William Everett Compositions, 1895 and undated (MS Am 800.4)

United States Navy Dept. Bureau of Construction and Repair War Activities Report, 1920 (MS Am 1619)

Edward Kennard Rand correspondence and other papers, 1900-1945 (MS Am 1663)

Button Badge Collection, ca. 1900-2001 (MS Thr 770)

Realia Related to Harvard University, 1908-1986 (MS Thr 771)

Realia for Magic and Jokes, 1957-2001 (MS Thr 772)
See the recent post about this collection

Images Concerning the Oberammergauer Passionsspiel, 1930-1934 (MS Thr 775)

Additional Realia for Magic and Jokes, 1957-1997 (MS Thr 779)

Victorian Portrait Collection, ca. 1860-1900 (MS Thr 782)

Shakespeare Seal Impression Collection, undated (MS Thr 783)

American Advertising Trade Cards, 1877-1887 (MS Thr 786)

Theater Souvenirs, ca. 1869-1891 (MS Thr 787)

French Advertising Trade Cards, 1882 and undated (MS Thr 791)

Though Franklin begins the letter with thanks for Ingenhousz’s support, the most interesting part of this letter for me is the conclusion, when he moves from current events to the discoveries of science and the learned community. The “curious discovery” of the title does not involve Mr. Franklin on a hillside during a thunderstorm, with kite and key in hand, but concerns instead another scholar.

Mr. Walsh, (one of whose Papers on the Torpedo I shall, to save Postage, send you thro’ the Hands of the Ambassador) has just made a curious Discovery in Electricity. You know we find that in rarify’d Air it would pass more freely, and leap thro’ greater Spaces than in dense Air; and thence it was concluded that in a perfect Vacuum it would pass any distance without the least Obstruction. But having made a perfect Vacuum by means of boil’d Mercury in a long Torricellian bent Tube, its Ends immers’d in Cups full of Mercury, he finds that the Vacuum will not conduct at all, but resists the Passage of the Electric Fluid absolutely, as much as if it was Glass itself. This may lead to new Principles and new Views in the atmospheric Part of Philosophy.

John Walsh (1726-1795) was a fellow of the Royal Society who studied the electrical transmission of the Torpedo fish. Franklin took it upon himself to widely disseminate Walsh’s paper, and in this letter even added a drawing to help Ingenhousz understand the experiment that Walsh had performed.

A transcription of the letter is available through the digital edition of the  Papers of Benjamin Franklin.

This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag.

[This post was contributed by James Capobianco, Reference Librarian.]

Realia for magic and jokes, 1957-2001. MS Thr 772 (16).

These “heavenly scented” towelettes are just one example of recently cataloged objects found in the Fredric Woodbridge Wilson Collection of Theater, Dance, and Music in the Harvard Theatre Collection.  In addition to hot pepper candy and a rubber pencil other examples include

amazing Mystic Smoke from the fingertips!

Or the famous Squirting Nickel! 

The inventor of the Squirting Nickel was Soren Sorensen Adams who started out by inventing sneezing powder or Cachoo!  After his early success Adams formed the S.S. Adams Company and went on to invent many novelty and joke tricks including the Dribble glass, the Stink Bomb, and the Snake Nut Can.  Perhaps his most memorable  invention was the Joy Buzzer, which enabled him to  earn enough money to set up a factory in Neptune, New Jersey.  Adams continued to create successful novelties, magic tricks, and puzzles until his death at age 84, and he claimed to have invented over 600 items with patents for 40 of them.

It is interesting how effectively these objects tap into your inner child without apology, and make no claims other than to provide a good laugh.  It is ironic that a business that was only concerned with producing a quick, cheap, and profitable product ended up achieving a somewhat iconic status in pop culture history.  A history which continues since novelty and joke tricks have still not lost their appeal to the modern consumer.  If you are interested in learning more about the history of novelty and joke items, including photographs for many of the objects, check out the publication Cheap Laffs : the art of the novelty item by Mark Newgarden and Picture Inc.

For other magic and trick joke objects in our collection please visit our online finding aid Realia for magic and jokes, 1957-2001: Guide. (MS Thr 772 ) 

[Collection cataloged by Bonnie B. Salt and post contributed by Alison Harris]

You know your Friday afternoon is looking up when you open a 19th century dance treatise and stumble across the phrase “first, give all the ladies a vegetable….”

An early donation by the late John Milton Ward, Charles Périn’s wonderful guide to the Cotillion (or German Dance) provides an overview of many versions which were fashionable in France ca. 1876, complete with illustrations and appropriate music. Everything, in fact, that an aspiring French hostess would need to plan a fabulous ball.

The particular dance which caught my eye was in a section titled “Figures avec accessories,” dances organized by things! (The “figures” were the blocking of a particular dance, in which one would then perform particular “pas” or dance steps, described elsewhere.)

In Les Sauterelles, partners are chosen via grasshoppers. As seen in the illustration above, a lady sits in the center of the room; two gentlemen are given grasshoppers which they place on the ground at the same time. The one whose grasshopper jumps first claims the first dance with the lady. Those are mighty big grasshoppers (I’m guessing this was a seasonal dance) who have clearly been raised on French food!

The second half of this volume presents appropriate music for the dances, many of which were taken from the popular operas and operettas of the day. For instance, you might choose to set your Grasshopper dance to “Je veux vivre!” from Roméo et Juliette, by Gounod. I’ve always felt this aria had a hoppy, energetic feeling, which might suit the madness ensuing when the gentlemen were unable to recapture their grasshoppers…

The experience of cataloging this letter led to some interesting observations. Chang and Eng spent every moment of their lives together but there is some evidence that they did try to live distinctly different lives.

First of all, while this page could be considered one letter, it could also be characterized as two letters since two separate sentiments were expressed in separate hands. In addition, Chang Bunker and Eng Bunker are listed separately by the Library of Congress authorities despite the fact that any mention of them in print always appears jointly as “Chang and Eng”.

The handwriting itself is fascinating. For example, The B in “Baltimore” is almost identical but the upper case D and lower case g are distinct. Are the differences intentional?

It’s not at all clear from this letter why they were paying thanks for Dr. Cohen but there are some that speculate that they may have sought separation as they were nearing the end of their tenure with P. T. Barnum in the late 1830’s.

After they left Barnum, they settled in North Carolina and met the Yates sisters that they married in 1843.

Here they are with their wives and some of their children. Together they fathered 22 children. They died on the same day in 1874. Chang contracted pneumonia and died in his sleep, Eng died hours later.

This is just one of the many fascinating letters in the Harvard Theatre collection. For more on Chang and Eng see:

Arthur Whittlesey Towne Papers on Conjoined Twins (MS Thr 580).

Human Curiosity Prints, Playbills, Broadsides and Other Printed Material, 1695-1937 (MS Thr 736).

This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag.

[Thanks to Krista Ferrante, Project Archivist, for contributing this post.]

Angus McBean was born in 1904 in Newport, South Wales, England. As a youth he was a devotee of the cinema, spending hours watching the early silent films and experimenting with photography. After a brief attempt at a career in banking, he moved to London in 1924 to work as a restorer of antiques, at the same time continuing his “hobbies” of mask-making and photography. In the early 1930s he received his first theatrical commission to make masks for The Golden Toy being performed at the Coliseum.

McBean then became the assistant to Hugh Cecil, a prominent Society photographer, where he learned portraiture. He then launched his career as a theater photographer. Over the course of the next 25 years McBean photographed all the British theater stars: Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, and Laurence Olivier, to name a few. By the late 1940s McBean was the official photographer for a number of major British theaters including Stratford, Sadler Well’s and the Old Vic.

McBean shot his photographs directly onto glass plates, using what was already considered old-fashioned equipment. Each photograph took six minutes. In the 1960s he moved to a monorail camera and began using film; though rarely color film which he disliked. He did use color film when shooting the iconic photograph for the Beatles album cover Please Please Me. McBean’s outdated methods and theatrical style led to a virtual end of his career by the early 1970s.

At this time all the portraits in the collection have been digitized, the Shakespeare productions, and the surrealist photographs for which McBean was renowned. Work has now begun on the theatrical productions, the largest portion of the collection. Over 8000 photographs are now available online in the VIA image database. To see the photographs, search on “McBean” and limit by to the repository “Harvard Theatre Collection.”

[Thanks to Susan Pyzynski, Associate Librarian for Technical Services, for contributing this post.]

North had spent two years clamoring for appointment to a missionary post when the offer of Singapore came from Wisner.  The clamor then ceased.  With some, perhaps, uncharacteristic restraint, North considered the offer for three weeks before replying to it. Writing from Utica, New York on August 1, North began, initially moving toward a rejection of the offer:

I can hardly assent to your remark, “since you have a strong desire to be thus employed.”  Of late I begin to entertain very different views of this subject.  I thought I had I examined it sufficiently, and counted the cost of becoming a missionary, till a few weeks ago, when returning from a Baptist missionary meeting, I began to suspect myself of having known very little of the matter. And I have much reason to believe that the greater part of the young missionaries in the service of the American Board, and other societies, who have gone from this city and vicinity, with some of whom I have been intimately acquainted, have had, when they engaged to go, no tolerable sense or even information of the greatness of the evils they were to encounter.  Indeed I know this to have been the fact …  And I have good reason too to believe that some in the service of your Board, when they come into actual contact with the extreme depravity, ignorance, and stupidity of the heathen, and the inconveniences of so different a climate and manner of living, bitterly lament their choice.  And though they may be compelled, by the circumstances in which they find themselves placed, to betake themselves to work, and eventually become tolerable missionaries, still how severely they must suffer from such a state of mind! …  When I think of the probably frequent perplexity and incessant fatigue to be expected by the person who shall occupy the important station you mention, and certainly its great responsibility; when I think of the hard heartedness, ingratitude, and faithlessness, the grievous impudence and shocking lewdness of the heathen, and above all my own want of spirituality, (and Singapore, withal, right on the equator!) really, my dear sir …

Singapore was, certainly, not what North had in mind when he first applied to the Home Mission Society and their Greek mission (for which he was rejected).  Imagining some kind of equatorial proxy for the “evil” of the “heathens” he would be encountering in his work, North flinched at accepting the offer.   Spending another day in contemplation and conversation though (the results of which could not be described “for want of room” on the page) resolved him to accept the offer, stating:

I am willing, heartily willing, to go to Singapore.

If the emphasis of that sentence was clear in and of itself though, taken in context with the labored prose that surrounded it, Wisner must have been unsure of North’s final position on the matter.  Replying later to Wisner’s request for clarity and conciseness with a letter that could be considered brief only comparatively, North wrote:

Sir—In compliance with your direction, I will briefly state, in [connection] with the offer of my services to your committee as printer to a foreign missionary station, what may be desirable for them to know concerning myself, and my views and motives in wishing to be employed in their service … Though, at times, when considered the greatness of the responsibilities of a missionary, I have been afraid to assume them, my desire to do so has on the whole been increasing up to the present time, and is now stronger than ever before and in watching the indications of divine Providence, I seem to have been placed, during this time, in such circumstances as were best [calculated] not only to make me sensible of those defects in my character [from] which most might be feared in the peculiar situation of a foreign missionary, but most impressively to suggest to me my duty …

“Your Committee are at liberty to send me as printer …” he concluded, despite the “worst evils” he expected to encounter abroad.

In his post right on the equator for the next eight years,  North served as manager of the mission’s printing department.  Immersed in the languages and stories of the place, he lost at least some of his disdain for the place and people.  Most notably he is celebrated for encouraging Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, Sir Stamford Raffles’ former scribe, in the writing and printing of Hikayat Abdullah (The Story of Abdullah), a central text in modern Malaysian literature.  A manuscript copy of Hikayat Abdullah may be found at Houghton, MS Indo 23.  A commonplace book, MS Indo 14, including Malay letters, poetry, genealogies and contracts complied by North is also available online.

The letters quoted here may be found in the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions archives, 1810-1961, ABC 6 vol. 11:23.

This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag. 

[Thanks to Emilie Hardman, Metadata and Reference Assistant, Houghton Library, for contributing this post.]