A new finding aid makes available for the first time over a thousand songsters in the Harvard Theatre Collection. These little books, cheaply produced and modestly priced, mixed traditional pieces of music with popular favorites in a handy pocket-sized format, throwing in recipes, magic tricks and jokes for good measure.

Last month Houghton Library acquired a small group of letters and postcards from Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) & Charles Shannon (1863-1937) to the Irish artist and collector Cecil French (1879-1953). These letters were acquired with the Louis Appell Jr. Fund for British Civilization because they are full of current affairs, news and gossip in the world Read More

Finding aids for 11 newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including a collection of photos of the dancer and choreographer known as La Meri.     Processed by Michael W. Austin: Series X. James family photograph albums in the collection: Correspondence and Journals of Henry James Jr. (MS Am Read More

Riddle: What does a semiotician do for fun? Answer:  For your amusement this April Fools’ Day, we offer a rebus from the papers of American philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Peirce (pronounced like “purse”), a scholar of astonishingly wide-ranging interests, was best known in philosophy for his theory of “pragmatism,” but he made many Read More

Houghton Library holds the largest collection anywhere of original works by the English author and artist Edward Lear (1812-1888). For the past two years the library has been engaged in a project to digitize all this material. The first phase of the endeavor included Lear’s natural history drawings, which were also the subject of an Read More