Texas collection of comedias sueltas and Spanish theater available for research and in online database

The Texas Collection of Comedias Sueltas and Spanish Theater is available for research. Individual records for each suelta are also available in an online database, providing extensive information about the collection.

The collection includes more than 15,000 “comedias sueltas,” a generic term for plays published in small pamphlet format in Spain from the early seventeenth century through the early twentieth century. The materials at the Ransom Center have been described as one of the major collections of Spanish dramatic literature in suelta form in North America.

Within the collection, more than 2,500 authors were identified of sueltas and related works published between 1603 and late 1930s. Nearly 600 sueltas at the Cushing Library at Texas A&M University were also cataloged as part of the project.

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) funded the cataloging project “Revealing Texas Collections of Comedias Sueltas” under its “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” initiative. CLIR is a nonprofit organization that works with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning to enhance research and teaching.

On September 29-30, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The University of Texas at Austin, the Department of Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University and the Ransom Center will host the conference “The State of the Comedia Suelta: Celebrating the Texas Collections.” Held at the Ransom Center, the conference will highlight writers and/or works represented in the collection. Researchers from a variety of fields — including Hispanic literature and culture, history of the book, music, theater, bibliography, conservation, and library science — are expected to attend.