As part of a continuing series of lectures and workshops sponsored by Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, Dr. Peter Rückert of the Landesarchiv of Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart visited Harvard the week of October 13th. On Tuesday, October 14th Dr. Rückert presented an illustrated lecture at Houghton entitled “Paper History and Watermarks Read More
Uncategorized
Poems on their birthdays
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
Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson Archive!
Launched on October 23, 2013, the Emily Dickinson Archive (EDA) celebrates its first year of operation this week, during Open Access Week. The site received 1.2 million “hits” from poetry lovers in its first 10 days; after a year, monthly usage averages 10,000 visits and 377,000 page views per month. About 80% of visitors are Read More
Mob Stories
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Detailing the early 1970s mob scene Mafia at War is an interesting and thorough read. Published by New York Magazine, this book gives an in depth chronology of the mob bosses from the early 1900s to the early Read More
A poet, killer, thief, brawler, and vagabond…
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Francois Villon was all of those things, and most prominently a subversive outsider. At a time when most poetic works were strongly religious or allegorical Villon wrote with honesty about love and sex, drinking, money problems, and Read More