In her formative years, the American poet Emily Dickinson’s interests centered on the study of voice and especially piano, for which she displayed considerable accomplishment and ambition. Her correspondence supplies the background for these activities while the contents of her music book provides a revealing perspective on just how assiduously and enthusiastically she collected, listened Read More
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The works of David Gasgoyne
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. The Santo Domingo collection is broad in scope, but its many volumes also accommodate exhaustive collecting of a number of particular authors. Among these is David Gascoyne (1916-2001), the British poet and translator known for his association with Read More
You’ve Got Mail: Theodore Roosevelt as comic artist
Despite the many demands of being president, Theodore Roosevelt found time to regularly write to each of his six children while they were away at school or visiting friends. Tailored to match each child’s interests and personality, TR’s letters are filled with descriptions of family pets, siblings’ antics, and his own many adventures (which make Read More
Bound in human skin
Houghton Library contains countless curiosities. Perhaps the most disturbing example is Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l’ame (FC8.H8177.879dc), bound in human skin. In the mid-1880s, Houssaye (1815-1896) presented his recent book, a meditation on the soul and life after death, to his friend Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839-1932), a noted medical doctor and prominent bibliophile. Bouland Read More
You’ve Got Mail: Keats in love
In the autumn of 1818, 23-year-old John Keats confessed in a letter to his brother George a fascination for one of his neighbors: “Mrs Brawne…still resides in Hampstead…her daughter senior is I think beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange we have a little tiff now and then.” The woman who caught Keats’s attention Read More