February 3, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Cataloging, Digital CollectionsLetter reveals lessons in seventeenth-century home economics in London According to Mary Evelyn, the wife of John Evelyn, a renowned English intellectual, diarist, and horticulturalist in the late seventeenth century, it cost £313 and 1 shilling to set up a proper upper-class household for eight people in London in 1675. In today’s dollars, the dishes, silver, glasses, linens, and… read more
January 21, 2014, Filed Under: Books + ManuscriptsNotebooks illuminate creative process behind Billy Collins’s poem “The Names” Among the papers in the recently acquired Billy Collins archive are materials related to his poem “The Names,” which was written to commemorate the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Interspersed throughout the poem are the names of 26 victims of the attacks, one name for each letter of… read more
January 21, 2014, Filed Under: Books + ManuscriptsRansom Center acquires archive of poet Billy Collins The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the archive of American poet Billy Collins. The materials span Collins’ personal and professional life from the 1950s to the present and documents in detail his creative development. Collins, born in 1941, is known as a poet for the people, with a witty, conversational… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Research + TeachingRare French “Cisiojanus” fragment identified in bookbinding through crowdsourcing project Farley P. Katz is a tax lawyer in San Antonio who collects rare books, manuscripts, and “too many other things.” He is one of the contributors to the medieval fragments project, a crowdsourcing research project headed by archivist Micah Erwin to identify fragments of medieval manuscripts bound into rare books… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Cataloging, Research + TeachingArchivist declares medieval manuscript fragment crowdsourcing project success During the late medieval and early modern period, it was a common practice for bookbinders to cut out the sturdy parchment leaves of outdated or unwanted handwritten books to reuse those leaves as covers or binding reinforcements in new “cutting edge” printed books. This practice lasted until roughly the seventeenth… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + ManuscriptsNew J. D. Salinger biography draws on letters in Ransom Center’s collection In early September, David Shields and Shane Salerno published Salinger, an oral biography of the well-known author of The Catcher in the Rye and infamous recluse, J. D. Salinger. Along with the publication, Salerno released an accompanying documentary film of the same title that features interviews, footage, and photographs related… read more
