This weekend involves at least two major 100th birthday parties: the first, on Saturday, is for the poet John Berryman, born on 25 October 1914. Celebrations will extend into Monday, appropriately, for Dylan Thomas, born on 27 October 1914. Thomas and Berryman have unfortunately legendary personae (either could have been responsible for drinking 18 straight Read More

Unsurprisingly, some of the centuries-old books now in Houghton’s library stacks have fared better over time than others.  There are many factors that impact the breakdown of codex materials, including (but not limited to) natural elements like water, heat, and either too much, or too little, humidity.  All of these deteriorate the components of the Read More

T. S. Eliot’s first magazine was published in an extremely limited edition, with an erratic mixture of upper- and lower-case penciling. Advertised as “A Little Papre” (it is about three inches wide and four inches tall), Fireside first appeared on January 28, 1899, when Eliot was ten. It ran in fourteen installments over the next Read More

Finding aids for three newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by Ashley M. Nary and Benjamin Hand: Vanity Fair Caricatures, 1871-1911 (MS Thr 1041) Processed by Bonnie B. Salt: Charles Henry Taylor Collection of Privateering Papers, 1718-1928 (MS Am 1087) Mayhew Family Papers, 1731-1790 (MS Am 977)

This story starts with a little database clean-up. (Hold that yawn!) Two unrelated items in HOLLIS had the same call number. There are any number of reasons why this might have happened, but figuring out that riddle was less important than finding the erroneously-numbered book. The title in question was a curious little volume, an Read More