Quentin Bell’s biography of Virginia Woolf begins with a famous sentence: “Virginia Woolf was a Miss Stephen.” Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was an eminent critic and editor of the Dictionary of National Biography; his first wife was W. M. Thackeray’s daughter Minny. The second Mrs. Stephen, Woolf’s mother, was… read more
“Great Gatsby” materials on display
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, now generally recognized as the closest approximation to “The Great American Novel” and a staple of the high school curriculum, is embarking on yet another new life. Today, a film adaptation opens starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Baz Luhrmann, and it has already… read more
The Great Wall Map Revealed
Until recently, one of the largest objects in the Ransom Center collections has also been one of the least visible. This past fall, Ransom Center photographer Pete Smith took up photographing Joan Blaeu’s great wall map (GWM) as a personal challenge.