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.
Today marks the start of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: Twenty Years that Changed the World of Art, a symposium and exhibition hosted by the Harvard Theatre Collection.
The symposium sessions will be held at the New College Theatre (formerly the Hasty Pudding Club House). The speakers and panelists, coming from a number of fields of specialization, will bring many perspectives to the appreciation of the Ballets Russes that should prove to be informative to their colleagues from all areas of interest.
The exhibition, which includes more than 200 original documents and art works, is drawn entirely from the holdings of the Harvard Theatre Collection, with the exception of a few items from other libraries of the Harvard College Library.
[Image: Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929). Portrait by Constantine Korovine. Graphite and chalk. George Chaffée Collection. Gift, 1951. Harvard Theatre Collection, HTC 4,339.]
The library recently completed the arrangement and cataloging of collections related to Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1866-1943), the niece of Emily Dickinson. Bianchi edited several collections of Emily Dickinson’s work, and wrote two Dickinson biographies. The bulk of the collections are correspondence and compositions related to her work and research into Dickinson.
Martha Dickinson Bianchi papers (MS Am 1118.96)
Martha Dickinson Bianchi correspondence concerning publication of the poetry of Emily Dickinson (MS Am 1118.97-1118.98)
In 1951, through the gift of Stephen W. Phillips (Class of 1895) and Curt H. Reisinger (1912), the map collection of the Prince Liechtenstein was purchased and brought to Houghton Library. Among the over 150 wall and sheet maps, for the most part collected by General von Hauslab, there are printed gores for making globes. One such set is Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s gores for a celestial globe, 9 gores on 3 sheets, with the title Sphaera Stellifera, *51-2459 PF.
According to “The First Celestial Globe of Willem Janszoon Blaeu,” by D.J. Warner (Imago Mundi, v.25, 1971, pp.29-38), these gores may have been created between 1596 and 1600 as Blaeu’s first celestial globe. The wonderful illustrations were engraved by Jan Pietersz. Saenredam.
Click on the image to the left to access the full digital image.
“Of English books printed before 1640 there were added during the year 149 items of which six are unrecorded in the Short-Title Catalogue and seven are unrecorded variants of items listed there. This extraordinary total is mainly due to the generosity of Mr. Harold T. White ‘97, and his sister, Mrs. Hugh D. Marshall, who presented all the books and manuscripts remaining in the library of their father, William
A. White ‘63, not already in the Harvard Library … Among the White books were several English manuscripts of this period including … [an] unusual volume contain[ing] a collection of Elizabethan heralds’ funeral certificates, including those of the wives of Sir Thomas Lucy, Sir Julius Caesar, and Sir Robert Cecil, as well as those of the mother-in-law of Sir Edward Coke and of a cousin of Sir William Cornwallis. The signatures of the survivors mentioned above are all included, together with many others. Bound at the end are several miscellaneous documents, including a long news letter, dated 3 September 1627, giving an account of a sea battle.”
[fMS Eng 728]
