This sensational case was, according to The Times, “the subject of general conversation throughout the country of Lancaster for several months… We do not remember any former occasion when the public curiosity was more excited.”

The plaintiff summarized the situation thus: “The declaration states, that in consideration that the plaintiff promise to marry the defendent, he, the defendent, undertook to marry the plaintiff; but that instead of doing so, he had married another woman.  The plaintiff pleads the general issue.”  The defense argued that the defendant was truly “the meanest reptile on earth” but concluded that Miss Orford had not lost much in losing her fiance to another woman.  The jury ruled on the side of Miss Orford, who was awarded a £7,000 settlement.

Aside from being an intriguing example of proto-feminism, the book has an equally intriguing association.  It belonged to book collector Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861), one of the first famous female book collectors in Europe.  Currer added several pages of her own manuscript notes to the book, agreeing with the defense that, “no one can think that Miss Orford sustained any loss of happiness, by her loss of Mr. Cole.”  Currer also lists several similar cases between Mr. Cole and other local women, one of whom claimed Cole attempted to leave her at the church door, ” ‘No, no Mr. Cole, as we have got so far we will go on’, or words to that effect…As might be expected after living a short time together most unhappily, she left him…”

*2009-109.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.

In 1861, President Lincoln  signed a bill making the United States Sanitary Commission into a government agency. Organized by thousands of women volunteers across the country, the commission succeeded in raising almost twenty five million dollars  during the course of the Civil War, and worked to cut the disease rate of the Union Army in half.*

In early 1864, the USSC held a “Sanitary Fair” in Brooklyn and Long Island to raise money for their efforts. The group published a daily newspaper titled The Drum Beat from 22 February to 5 March, with an extra issue on 11 March 1864.  The paper was professionally edited, illustrated, and printed, included work by leading writers and artists, and sold nearly 6000 copies per day at the fair and by subscription.  While an interesting example of a Civil War publication in its own right, the newspaper holds special significance for our collection at Houghton.

In the March 2, 1864 issue, an unsigned poem titled “Flowers” (”Flowers – Well – if anybody”) appeared.  A poem titled “Sunset” (”Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple”)  was published March 5, and “October” (”These are the days when the birds come back”) appeared March 11.  It was not until 1984 that scholar Karen Dandurand** attributed these poems to Emily Dickinson.  The Drum Beat was edited by the Reverent Richard Salter Storrs, Jr.,  a graduate of Amherst College and acquaintance of Emily’s brother Austin Dickinson.  Dandurand believes that Dickinson voluntarily contributed these poems to the war effort, perhaps through her brother, perhaps on her own.  (Prior to this discovery, scholars believed Dickinson felt ambivalent towards the Civil War, and gave up seeking publication of her work following numerous rejections.)

*See http://www.forttejon.org/ussc/ussc.html for more information on the USSC.

** See Dandurand, “New Dickinson Civil War Publications,” American Literature 56.1 (March 1984), p. 17.

US 6090.33 F*.  From the bequest of Evert Jansen Wendell, 1918.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.

While best known as a Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) held government posts in the British government of Malta from April 1804 to September 1805.  The location was chosen in part to aid the poet’s poor health.

From April 1804 to September 1805, Coleridge served in Malta as Secretary to the Governor, Sir Alexander Ball.  Coleridge enjoyed his work, practicing his Italian (the official language used in the Maltese government) as he signed himself “Segretario Pubblico dell’ Isole di Malta, Gozo, e delle loro dipendenze” many times each day.  Ball was a popular figure, and Coleridge later described him as a “truly great man.” Privately, however, Coleridge was unhappy in Malta, and was frequently ill.

Hostility towards the Maltese Jewish population was increasing in the Spring of 1805.  On May 22, Coleridge wrote two official notices for the Governor; the first condemned the “popular prejudice” against the Jews, and the second alerted its readers that three people will be whipped and exiled for inventing and spreading false rumors, and advised those who would commit similar offenses that they will be treated the same way.

This kind of Coleridge ephemera is rather rare, and is an exciting addition to Houghton’s extensive holdings of Coleridge material, which include books from the poet’s library, Coleridge’s own publications, and manuscript collections of compositions and correspondence, all of which can be viewed by searching Hollis.

*2008-2030.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.  Image may not be reproduced without permission.

In 1785, Jean Jacques Audubon was born in Haiti, the illigitimate son of a French naval officer and his mistress.  Audubon immigrated to the United States at age 18 (anglicizing his name to John James Audubon), and almost immediately began to study its ornithology, hoping to illustrate the birds he observed in a more realistic manner than was common at the time.  His famous work, Birds of America, was published after years of study, from 1840-44.

116 of Audubon’s early drawings, held at Houghton Library and at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, have been published together for the first time in a new publication, Audubon: Early Drawings, available this month from the Harvard University Press.  The drawings are enhanced by an essay on the sources of Audubon’s art by his biographer, Richard Rhodes; transcription of Audubon’s own annotations to the drawings, including information on when and where the specimens were collected; ornithological commentary by Scott V. Edwards, along with reflections on Audubon as scientist; and an account of the history of the Harris collection by Houghton Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts Leslie A. Morris.   More information on the book can be found on the Modern Books & Manuscripts website, the Harvard College Library website, and a slideshow of images from the book may be found here, on the Harvard University Press website.

In the video below, by David Braun of National Geographic, Scott Edwards talks about the book and shows a few of the images:

Image above:  MS Am 21 (88).  Juglane oliveformia. Carolina Parrot in[?] Willow from imitation of colors [?] Psittacus Carolinensis. N.p., 1811 June 9. 1 drawing: watercolor, pastel, graphite, and ink on paper; 43 x 28 cm.

The album contains twelve paintings of spring and summer flowers.

Pictured below are Lobelia Cardinalis, or Cardinal Flower, for August:

Impatiens Noli Tangere, or Touch-me-not, for August:

And Orchis Fibriata, or Fimbriated Orchis, for July:

Dwight is perhaps best remembered today as a chronicler of daily life at Brook Farm, through  correspondence with her friend Anna Parsons.  Dwight, along with her parents and siblings, lived at the Farm from 1844-1847, where she taught art and Latin.  In 1845, Dwight wrote, “I have now a plan, which I will begin to execute tomorrow, of making some little books for sale…They are to be picture books – wild flowers, birds, and I know not yet what variety…I intend to have the cover of colored Bristol-board, prettily stamped like our fans and shades.”  This album seems to be one such book, of which there are very few surviving examples.

pf MS Am 2625.  Dwight, Marianne.  Wild Flowers, 1846. Purchased with the Edward and Bertha C. Rose Acquisition Fund, the Stanley Marcus Endowment for Rare Books, and the Amy Lowell Trust.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

We are pleased to announce a new online exhibition, “Public Poet, Private Man: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at 200,” based on the 2007 exhibition curated by Christoph Irmscher.

This exhibition seeks to represent Longfellow as he really was: not as the bogeyman of modernists wanting to exorcize the ghosts of their Victorian past, but as a consummate literary professional who became the most popular poet America has ever had. By foregrounding the “private” Longfellow (the drawings made by and for his children, his journals, and letters written by and to him) alongside the international, multilingual and widely-traveled Longfellow, the exhibition demonstrates how Longfellow re-invented poetry as a public forum for everyone’s private feelings and how he consistently challenged the nationalistic distinction between what is typically and purely “American” and all that is not.

More information on the original exhibition, along with a slideshow of images, may be found here.

This “computer” is one of the earliest uses of the word to mean a calculating instrument, and not a person who calculates data. It was originally patented by Aaron Palmer in 1843, but was updated and improved by J.E. Fuller in 1847. (This model was printed from Palmer’s original plate, and measures 8.5 inches in diameter). The circular slide rule was meant quickly (thus the invocation of the word “telegraphic,” capitalizing on the popularity of that speedy new technology) to calculate square measures, cubic measures, timber, grain, and liquid measures, and interest rates from three to ten percent on a daily and monthly basis. A “Time Telegraph” on the reverse side can be used to calculate the number of days or weeks between any two dates.

To assist those who were wary of the new technology, the Computer was published with lengthy instructions on its use. It went through several editions, and accompanying manuals were printed in succeeding years. An 1852 English edition included a 45-verse poem with the set, attesting to the Computer’s popularity:

Progressive men of every nation,
To business in any station,
We bring a true good working scale,
A right good test – it cannot fail. [...]

Six copies of this work have been
Ordered by England’s worthy Queen;
Orders for other six were sent
From British Houses of Parliament.

Now if only it could download music…

*2007-799. Purchased with the Will Andrewes Book Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

This new four-page manuscript, most likely written ca. 1873, was probably sent to her friend and future editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whose wife, Mary Thacher Higginson, transcribed it (the transcription is now at the Boston Public Library in the Higginson Papers). Ralph Franklin believed that the original had been sent to Higginson along with a note and three other poems (see Fr 796); but the new autograph is on different paper (watermarked “A. Pirie and Sons 1871″) than the three still in the Higginson Papers (BPL MS Am 1093 (48), (40), and (50)). Higginson also refers to this poem in a letter to his co-editor Mabel Loomis Todd (1891 May 13); this, in combination with the transcript, makes it seem probable that the present manuscript was at one time in his possession.

But how did it leave his possession? The details of the manuscript’s provenance are not yet fully established, but it seems likely that Higginson gave it to Gretchen Osgood (Mrs. Fiske) Warren (1868-1961), whom he would have known through the Museum of Fine Arts. The present manuscript, reputedly from Mrs. Fiske Warren’s estate, appeared for sale at Skinner’s in Boston on 10 November 2001.

Houghton Library holds a variant of this poem, sent by Dickinson to her sister-in-law Susan (Houghton MS Am 1118.3 (356)), which begins “The Wind begun to knead the Grass.” Now possible to view the two side by side, the manuscripts bring home to students and experienced textual scholars alike the physicality of Dickinson’s continual reworking of her poems, and her distribution of them to her friends.

The poem was written on one piece of paper folded in half. The first image below shows pages 4 and 1, and the second image shows pages 2 and 3. (Click on the images twice to see more detail.)

This version of the poem reads:

The Wind begun to rock the Grass
With threatening Tunes and low –
He flung a Menace at the Earth –
A Menace at the Sky –

The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees
And started all abroad –
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands
And throw away the Road -

The Wagons quickened on the streets -
The Thunder hurried slow –
The Lightning showed a yellow Beak -
And then a livid Claw –

The Birds put up the Bars to Nests –
The Cattle fled to Barns –
There came one drop of Giant Rain
And then as if the Hands

That held the Dams – had parted hold
The Waters Wrecked the Sky -
But overlooked My Father’s House –
Just quartering a Tree –

*2007M-74. © The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Purchased with the Dickinson Collection Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

The set, which arrived in its original box, includes forty hand-colored cards depicting men and women. The twenty cards picturing men each contain a member of a different profession and a rhyming, nineteenth-century, pick-up line. The cards featuring women contain various polite (and not-so-polite) rejections, along with a few acceptances. Presumably, players could match different cards to form various comic, romantic scenarios, thus practicing for their own courtships.

Included in the images below are examples of six different cards. (I’ve added some punctuation for clarification.)

Soldier: With sword, gorget, and sash, can you love Captain Flash?

Woman: Upon my word, you graceless Elf, I’ll keep that answer to myself.

Man: Reading improves the mind they say. Are you fond of Reading, pray?

Woman: How provoking you are thus to torment me so. But I’ll give you my answer – it is certainly No.

Man: The Bee is a pattern to all in this Life. Can you be a good & industrious Wife?

Woman: Well that’s very civil, I thank you for this. And I’ll be as civil; I answer Sir, Yes.

More playing cards can be found in the James Edward Whitney collection.

*EC8.A100.820p. Purchased with the Melvin R. Seiden Houghton Library Book Fund for Music. Images may not be reproduced without permission.