The University of Texas at Austin and the Harry Ransom Center continue to take action to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Currently, we are closed to the public, and will reopen, if the situation allows, on May 1, 2020. [Read more…] about Ransom Center closed until May 1
Exhibitions + Events
Picturing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries
The Ransom Center’s Spring 2020 Stories to Tell exhibition features some of the earliest printed examples of illustrated English plays. [Read more…] about Picturing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries
The Golden Age of Magic Posters
The turn of the twentieth century was a period of innovation, when advances in printing and color lithography coincided with a new golden age in the performance of magic and illusion. This convergence resulted in the most stunning, color-saturated advertisements in the history of magic. [Read more…] about The Golden Age of Magic Posters
Revealing an English Schoolmaster’s Piers Plowman
Most of the books that came to The University of Texas at Austin as part of the John Henry Wrenn Library didn’t look like old books when they arrived in 1918 and still don’t look old now—not as old, at least, as the publication dates of the printed pages inside would suggest. [Read more…] about Revealing an English Schoolmaster’s Piers Plowman
Celebrating 100 years of Doris Lessing
Nobel Prize–winning author Doris Lessing was born one hundred years ago, on October 22, 1919. [Read more…] about Celebrating 100 years of Doris Lessing
Why are some books collected and others merely read?
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, cheap and shoddy reprints of Jane Austen’s novels brought her work to the general public. [Read more…] about Why are some books collected and others merely read?