Thousands of digitized records reflecting major historical events of the 20th century related to PEN International, a global writers’ organization, are available online beginning this month. [Read more…] about New digital resources launch online for study of human rights
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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
Preserving one of the Center’s most celebrated objects
In partnership with imaging specialists and conservation scientists across the country, in summer 2019, the Harry Ransom Center undertook a project to ensure the longterm preservation of The Niépce Heliograph, the earliest known surviving photograph made with the aid of the camera obscura. [Read more…] about Preserving one of the Center’s most celebrated objects
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?
Introducing ‘The Niépce Heliograph’
One of the most celebrated objects in the history of photography is featured in a permanent exhibition just inside the main entrance to the Harry Ransom Center. The untitled photograph—the earliest known surviving photograph made with the aid of the camera obscura—was produced in 1827 by the French scientist and inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a process he called héliographie. Permanent exhibitions are never really “permanent,” however; objects may remain in place, but their meanings are always evolving, and exhibitions are periodically revised to reflect those advances. [Read more…] about Introducing ‘The Niépce Heliograph’
Detecting forgeries of Aubrey Beardsley’s influential artworks
“Pray forgive my frankness when I say that two of them are not only not by A.B. [Aubrey Beardsley], but are not in the least like him! It is astonishing to me how many people are taken in. Is it not perhaps because they buy a name and not a work of art? I hope that is your excuse. But you are in good company.”
— R. A. Walker (1944)
[Read more…] about Detecting forgeries of Aubrey Beardsley’s influential artworks
