Authors

Archive charts Lisa Alther’s extensive literary career

May 9, 2022 - Megan Barnard

First page of an edited draft of Lisa Alther’s Kinflicks, ca. 1975. Lisa Alther Papers. Harry Ransom Center.

The Ransom Center is now home to the papers of bestselling American writer Lisa Alther (b. 1944), whose works frequently explore cultural stereotypes—particularly those relating to women—with wit and humor.

Alther is the author of 12 books, including her first published novel, Kinflicks (1976), an acclaimed, feminist coming-of-age story. Writing of Alther’s debut in Harper’s, Alice Adams noted, “This book is so continuously funny that its wisdom takes you by surprise… we are in the presence of a most powerful and remarkable talent.”

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #5

May 3, 2022 - Harry Ransom Center

British Library, Add Ms 57347(f166)

#5: Harriet Weaver’s account page for James Joyce Esq, 1923–1924

by CLARE HUTTON

This is the fifth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported author James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses (1922). Learn more in the exhibition, Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, curated by Dr. Clare Hutton and on view through July 17, 2022. Subscribe to eNews to receive all the articles in this series.

This single typed page of figures reveals much about Joyce’s income. It is a record of regular amounts paid to Joyce by Harriet Weaver’s solicitors, Monro, Saw and Company, a firm based in London. In sum, it shows that Joyce owned investments to the value of £22,850 in June 1924, when the account was made up.

ABOUT CLARE HUTTON

Dr. Clare Hutton is Reader in English and Digital Humanities at Loughborough University, and the curator of Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, a centenary Ulysses exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Her monograph, Serial Encounters: Ulysses and The Little Review (OUP, 2019) has just been reissued in paperback. Her other research includes editing The Irish Book in English, 1891-2000 (OUP, 2011), and many essays on Yeats, Joyce, and the "Irish Literary Revival."

Making the Banned Accessible: Digitizing the Hall-Troubridge Archive

April 28, 2022 - Harry Ransom Center

by VEGA SHAH

The Ransom Center is home to the collection and papers of British author Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) and her partner, Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge (1887-1963), a sculptor and translator. The couple, being openly lesbian partners, are remembered as LGBTQ pioneers, with Hall’s novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928), making lesbianism more visible in English society, despite the banning of the novel in England.

The Hall-Troubridge papers have been digitized and are accessible online in a new digital collection. Explore more than 40,000 images of Hall and Troubridge’s papers, letters, and photos, that provide insight into their personal correspondence, as well as topics such as gender, politics, and spirituality.

ABOUT VEGA SHAH

Vega Shah is an undergraduate intern at the Harry Ransom Center and a senior at the University of Texas at Austin pursuing a B.A in Anthropology, a minor in Art History, and certificates in Liberal Arts Honors and Museum Studies. Her research interests include Islamic and contemporary art and equity in museum education and curation.

Archive of poet John Balaban acquired by the Ransom Center

April 26, 2022 - Megan Barnard

John Balaban being honored by the Ministry of Culture of Vietnam, 2008. John Balaban Papers. Harry Ransom Center.

The Ransom Center has acquired the papers of poet, author, and translator John Balaban (b. 1943). Balaban is the author of 13 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His poetry collections After Our War (1974) and Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New & Selected Poems (1997) were both finalists for the National Book Award. He has received The Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award, a William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, a National Poetry Series selection, and a Guggenheim fellowship, among other honors.

Poet Maxine Kumin noted, “Balaban seems to me to be our moral spokesperson, our lyricist, polemicist, exhorter, and consoler: in short, the poet we need.”

Balaban’s papers include manuscripts of his poetry, fiction, translations, and literary non-fiction; correspondence with fellow writers such as John Barth, Philip Caputo, Gloria Emerson, Seamus Heaney, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, William Meredith, W. S. Merwin, James Michener, and John Updike; photographs; and other materials that document his literary career.

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #4

April 12, 2022 - Harry Ransom Center

Carlton Lake Collection of Maurice Saillet, Sylvia Beach, and Shakespeare and Company, Harry Ransom Center, 262.10

#4 Sylvia Beach’s subscriber’s list for Ulysses, 1922.

by CLARE HUTTON

This is the fourth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported author James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses (1922). Learn more in the exhibition, Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, curated by Dr. Clare Hutton and on view through July 17, 2022. Subscribe to eNews to receive all the articles in this series.

This tiny ledger, meticulously compiled by Sylvia Beach, records subscriptions for the first edition of Ulysses. It serves as a potent reminder of the necessary administrative labor and organization going on behind the scenes at Shakespeare and Company. Ulysses, issued in a limited edition of 1,000 copies on February 2, 1922, the occasion of Joyce’s fortieth birthday, had sold out by June 15, 1922. In no small part, this success must be attributed to Beach’s considerable energy, efficiency, and business acumen.

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #3

March 21, 2022 - Harry Ransom Center

Page 1 of a letter from Mary Jane Joyce to James Joyce, March 2, 1903. Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

# 3: Letter from Mary Jane Joyce to James Joyce, March 2, 1903.

by CLARE HUTTON

This is the third article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported author James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses (1922). Learn more in the exhibition, Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, curated by Dr. Clare Hutton and on view through July 17, 2022. Subscribe to eNews to receive all the articles in this series.

A good deal has been written about James Joyce’s father, John Stanislaus Joyce (1849–1931), but rather less has been said about his mother, Mary Jane Joyce (née Murray, 1859–1903). This vivid and lengthy letter, sent to James Joyce in Paris, gives a deep sense of the connection and trust that existed between Joyce and his mother. It also gives a sense of Joyce’s family more generally. By 1903 James Joyce, born in 1882, was the eldest of nine. The letter mentions six of his siblings: Stannie, Charlie, May, Mabel, Florrie, and Poppie (but omits Eva and Eileen).

Archive charts Lisa Alther’s extensive literary career

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #5

Making the Banned Accessible: Digitizing the Hall-Troubridge Archive

Archive of poet John Balaban acquired by the Ransom Center

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #4

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #3

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