Hyde Collection Catablog

Last chance to see

John Overholt — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:52:44 +0000

I’ve given several tours of the Hyde Collection exhibition since it opened in August, and HCL News has just done a story about the last of these, accompanied by a picture in which you can see me attempting to point out something without putting smudgy fingerprints on the display case. That’s a good time to remind those of you in the Boston area that the exhibition will be closing here on November 14th. Don’t despair if you can’t make it, however; the new and improved version will open at the Grolier Club in New York on December 9th, with extra things I didn’t have room for here at Houghton.

Johnson at 300 at Yale

John Overholt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:22:53 +0000

My colleague Kathryn James’s exhibition on Johnson and Boswell, “Really As It Was: Writing the Life of Samuel Johnson” will be on display at Yale’s Beinecke Library until mid-December, and has an excellent online version as well. The Beinecke is of course the home of the tremendous Boswell Papers collection, much of which has been digitized.

A new member of the family

John Overholt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:50:35 +0000

Today we unveiled the newest blog at Houghton, the aptly named Houghton Library Blog. Alongside the Catablog and the Modern Books and Manuscripts Blog, the new blog will cover new acquisitions, events, and interesting discoveries throughout the all the departments at Houghton.

Peyraud rundown

John Overholt — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:16:33 +0000

You’ll need to have access to the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies to read it, but Maureen Mulvihill’s report on the Paula Peyraud sale, at which we made a number of purchases, is now online.

Just wild about Mary

John Overholt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:28:47 +0000

My fellow Mary Hyde enthusiast Jerry Morris has just posted a great story about finding a used copy of Bate’s biography of Johnson with a triple play of Johnsonian provenance, in a rather out-of-the-way place. In addition, he’s posted scans of some photos of Mary, including a scandalous photo I’d never seen before. Who knew the future Viscountess Eccles was such a wild youth!

Johnson on the air

John Overholt — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:59:09 +0000

In honor of the tercentenary, BBC Radio 4 is airing a series of programs on Samuel Johnson, including a dramatization of Boswell’s Life, and an appreciation of Johnson by current London mayor Boris Johnson. Act now, because the programs will stay on the website for only a week after they air.

A very successful symposium

John Overholt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:00:51 +0000

There’s a nice article in the new Harvard Gazette about our just-completed symposium Johnson at 300, and it provides me with an opportunity to thank all of those who contributed to making it so tremendously enjoyable and productive, most especially my colleagues Tom Horrocks and Peter Accardo, who worked tirelessly to bring it to fruition.

A Monument-al grand opening

John Overholt — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:49:14 +0000

Two very big pieces of news today: both the physical and virtual versions of my exhibition A Monument More Durable Than Brass are open to visitors today. If you can, come by our Edison & Newman room anytime Houghton Library is open to see some of the collection’s greatest treasures in person. If you’re interested in Samuel Johnson, it’s an experience not to be missed.

If you can’t make it, however, be sure to check out the online version of the exhibition for a close-up look at all the books, manuscripts, letters, and artifacts on display.

This is my first, and just Houghton’s second, online exhibition, so please send your feedback to me at overholt@fas.harvard.edu. I’m very proud that we’ve managed to have the online exhibition open simultaneously with the physical one, and I want to thank Enrique Diaz of the Harvard College Library Office of Communication for all his hard work, and for his beautiful and elegantly functional design.

The new catalog is here!

John Overholt — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:30:39 +0000

I just had the great pleasure of opening the first carton of the published catalog for my exhibition, and it’s a pretty sharp-looking publication if I do say so myself. It won’t officially go on sale from Harvard University Press until February, but if you happen to be coming to the symposium, there will be copies for sale at the opening reception for the very reasonable price of $35. It’s 124 pages, lavishly illustrated in color, and features, in addition to the exhibition items, an essay on Johnson by Harvard Professor James Engell and on the Hydes by William Zachs.

You’d probably have to be a cataloger to understand my excitement, but this means I’m going to get my own Library of Congress authority record!

One longs to say something

John Overholt — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:04:57 +0000

I’ve mentioned before our substantial collection of books annotated by Johnson’s friend and biographer Hester Thrale Piozzi. I’m tremendously pleased that Harvard’s Open Collections Program will be digitizing a number of volumes from that collection as part of a project on readers and evidence of their reading. The collection is still in development, but the first of Mrs. Piozzi’s books to be digitized (and also one of the most interesting) is now available.

Hester Piozzi and James Boswell were rivals for Johnson’s attention during his life, and for his legacy after his death, so it’s particularly interesting to read her often combative annotations to Boswell’s Life of Johnson. All four volumes have been digitized in high resolution from cover to cover, and I hope they’ll be of great use to scholars and students around the world.

Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
Vol. 4

Of course, if you’d like to visit this set in person, don’t forget that you can do so in my exhibition A Monument More Durable Than Brass: The Donald & Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson, opening August 26th.