Houghton Library Blog

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

The iconic Kelmscott Chaucer—this copy being one of only three printed on vellum and bound in full pigskin—is the crowning achievement of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones’ ventures into book production. As a practicing artist with a background in medieval studies, I’m fascinated by recreations of historical artistry. I held my breath when, in my first weeks on the job, one of the Kelmscott books found its way to my desk to be measured for a new box. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to explore many Kelmscott books in Houghton’s collection: some on paper and some on vellum, some bound simply and others highly adorned, though none as breathtaking as The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted (London, 1896)
Typ 805K.96.274, Gift of Henry Arthur Jones, 1906

William Morris was an English artist and designer, and a major figure in the 19^th century Arts and Crafts Movement. He was also an active socialist and an admirer of medieval art. He strove to bridge the divide between fine arts and crafts by creating beautiful, useful decorated objects. In 1891, he founded the Kelmscott Press, where he spent the last several years of his life producing illuminated-style printed books in high quality, limited editions.

In creating objects that look medieval, Morris made a statement on his own time period. His art is a reaction to industrial modes of production, which he decried as dehumanizing. Instead, he promoted an idealized vision of medieval craftsmanship. His love for the Middle Ages strikes me as curious, given the era’s reputation for ruthless hierarchy. On the other hand, these clashing interpretations remind me that no account of history can be objective or unbiased. All of us – historians included – bring our personal and cultural biases to the table when we interact with the past.

Morris’s business practices, though idealistic, are also mired in contradiction. He envisioned a socialist utopia in which everyone lived comfortably, and no one desired luxury. In his imagined future, beautiful objects such as the Kelmscott Chaucer would be owned by public institutions. In Morris’s reality, however, he depended on the wealthy to support his creative endeavors. Perhaps he wished that in the future, his works would find their way into public view, where they could be widely enjoyed. In this regard I fully agree with him; works of art have the greatest value when they can be used and admired by all.

Robin Harney, Library Assistant, contributed this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

Melesinda Munbee’s Miscellany found its way into my hands one day  in 2002 when I was browsing our stacks, looking for manuscripts to show to a class. This miscellany consists of  two handwritten volumes of poems inscribed in 1749 by a five-and-a-half-year-old girl and dedicated to her father, Valentine Munbee, who taught her how to write. That’s what the dedicatory poem says, and maybe that’s just what it is. But I was intrigued by it from the moment I opened up the first volume and read the title-page:

MS Eng 768 v. 1 A collection of various kinds of poetry : title-page.

That handwriting looked much too practiced and elegant for such a young girl. (more…)

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

In September of 1966, Hunters Point, a predominately black neighborhood in San Francisco, erupted after the murder of sixteen-year-old Matthew Johnson by police. The riots were a catalyzing event for activist Huey Newton, who realized that the black community and its anger, if properly channeled, could be a powerful instrument against police brutality and other forms of institutional racism. With fellow activist Bobby Seale, Newton formed The Black Panther Party with the intent to counteract (or even subvert) police violence through armed patrols by local citizens. Two years after its founding, new chapters opened in cities across the United States – from Boston to Seattle. As the organization grew, its mission expanded to embrace social programs, such as free breakfast for children and community health clinics – a point largely forgotten by the organization’s critics then and now.

All images f AC95.B5665.969c.

Instrumental in spreading the party’s message was The Black Panther, a weekly newspaper that soon became its official voice. (more…)

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

I’ve consistently been fascinated by traces left behind by producers, owners, and readers of books in the Houghton Library collections. Most famously illustrated and explained in Roger Stoddard’s Marks in Books, these page-filling scrawls of early modern students and inky fingerprints of printers bring to life many of our volumes, and support a growing number of scholars making this evidence central to their research.

Other researchers in the reading room come to Houghton to study the writing process of a particular author. They interrogate the letters and manuscripts left behind to come up with theories about how and why they wrote a particular work, or what they meant by this or that scribble.

Early in my time at Houghton, I came upon a particularly interesting example of an item that brings these two areas of interest together that has stuck with me over the intervening years.

Toward the end of Ernest Hemingway’s life, while living in Cuba, he wrote a number of letters to Harvey Breit, a book reviewer and critic in New York. The two met in 1950 and connected and corresponded about topics of mutual interest, such as boxing, bullfighting, and fishing. These letters coincide with a last burst of Hemingway’s creative energy which brought The Old Man and the Sea to life.

Despite not being the biggest fan of Hemingway, I find this one particular letter from August 27, 1951 [MS Am 1791 (26)], to be a fascinating glimpse into a writer’s creative process. At one point Hemingway writes “The main problem with literature around here is to be at your best at 0630 when it is still cool and break off before the sweat spots ruin the pencil writing (around 1100) This makes literature seem simple!” He also makes sure to highlight the physical evidence in the paper, circling and labeling a yellowed sweat mark above. I like to imagine the bearded, shirtless Hemingway in the early morning Cuban sun, struggling to bring his thoughts to paper before they are rinsed away by the sweat of his brow.

Perhaps literature is just that simple.

James Capobianco, Reference Librarian, contributed this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

At the time of his death, Professor John M. Ward (the donor of our Ward Collection) was writing a book on the history of social dance, from the 16th century through Dirty Dancing. His research was painstaking, and he had been working on this project off and on for many years. With this in mind, many of his purchases reflected this interest, and one particular purchase was close to his heart: what locally we have come to call The Ward Manuscript. In honor of the professor, I’ve chosen this little manuscript volume for our current exhibit, Open House 75.

Table of contents for the Ward Manuscript, listing The goddesses as the first dance.

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