New Exhibition Now Open: “Fearsome Ink”

Posted on March 3, 2016 by

Part of the exhibition, "Fearsome Ink: The English Gothic Novel to 1830," on view through Mat 28.

A portion of the exhibition, “Fearsome Ink: The English Gothic Novel to 1830,” on view through May 28.

Some readers will know that the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library possesses what is considered the world’s finest collection of English Gothic novels. From approximately 1765 to 1830 English readers eagerly embraced a new genre of “Gothic” fiction: typically set in medieval times, imbued with Gothic sensibilities, and frequently invoking the supernatural, its passionate and vividly delineated characters endured untold horrors of the imagination and scourges of the flesh. Ever since, this profusion of what one might term “fearsome ink” has profoundly influenced the world’s literary and popular culture.

A Gothic precursor and Shakespeare source: Matteo Bandello’s tale of the ill-fated lovers of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, in French translation. Matteo Bandello, Histoires tragiques. Paris: Gilles Robinot, 1559. (Gordon 1559 .B3)

The nucleus of U.Va.’s collection was formed by British bibliographer Michael Sadleir and enlarged by U.Va. graduate student Robert K. Black, who donated the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction to U.Va. in 1942. Since then the collection has grown steadily through purchase and gift. In 2012 the French scholar Maurice Lévy—who five decades earlier had mined the Sadleir-Black Collection for his dissertation—generously gave to U.Va. a superb collection of Gothic fiction in French translation: the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic. Highlights from these two collections are now on view in the exhibition “Fearsome Ink: the English Gothic Novel to 1830.”

Oh, the horror! A hand-colored, engraved frontispiece to an early 19th-century “shilling shocker,” or chapbook adaptation of a Gothic novel.

“Fearsome Ink” explores the English Gothic novel as a publishing phenomenon as well as a literary genre. It seeks to situate the English Gothic novel in international context; probe its potential for research in such areas as literary history, the history of publishing and reading, and book illustration; and profile the collectors responsible for building U.Va.’s magisterial holdings. Highlights include 16^th– and 17^th-century precursors of Gothic literature; contemporary German “shudder novels”; French translations of English Gothic novels; early American attempts to write Gothic fiction suited to American audiences; parodies of Gothic fiction; strikingly illustrated popular chapbook versions of Gothic novels; copies owned (and presumably read) by “persons of quality”; and battered circulating library copies read by the majority of contemporary readers.

Original manuscript contract, signed by Ann Radcliffe, for her bestselling the Mysteries of Udolpho (London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794). Radcliffe's novel commanded the princely sum of 500 British pounds from publisher George Robinson. (MSS 1625)

Original manuscript contract, signed by Ann Radcliffe, for her bestselling novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho (London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794). Radcliffe’s novel commanded the princely sum of 500 British pounds from publisher George Robinson. (MSS 1625)

On March 25-26, U.Va.’s Department of French is sponsoring a related conference, “The Dark Thread: From histoires tragiques to Gothic Tales.”

“Fearsome Ink” will remain on view through May 28 in the first floor gallery of the Small Special Collections Library.

Open Now!: Shakespeare by the Book

Posted on February 25, 2016 by

This year, libraries, museums, theaters, and universities across the globe are marking the four-hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death by celebrating his life and works. In our small corner of the world here at UVA, the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library is making its own unique contribution to the festivities with the exhibition, Shakespeare by the Book: Four Centuries of Printing, Editing, and Publishing.

Few literary works have been preserved, transformed, or reinvented in print as often as the plays of William Shakespeare. From the First Folio to YOLO Juliet, this exhibition of over one hundred items shows how shifting assumptions, expectations, aesthetics, and needs have determined what it means to print Shakespeare “by the book.”

The exhibition is broken up into three “acts.” The first, “Scarcity & Excess,” investigates the tension between the very few extant texts of Shakespeare’s work from the seventeenth century and the many variants that exist in the volumes that do survive. Highlights include the Library’s First Folio fragment of Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost (1623) and our quarto of King Lear (1619). As part of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s First Folio tour, a complete First Folio will join the exhibition for the month of October.

Folio editions printed around the same time as the first two Folios of Shakespeare, including two books printed at the same printing house as the First Folio, reveal some of the characteristics of English printed books in the 1620s and 1630s.

The second act, “We Quarrel in print,” traces how editors have transformed the text of Shakespeare at two key moments: the eighteenth century and the mid-twentieth century. In the latter period, UVA English Professor Fredson Bowers and UVA English Ph.D. Charlton Hinman played a pivotal role in Shakespearean scholarship. Highlights include landmark editions of Shakespeare, two videos about Bowers and Hinman’s contributions to bibliography, our research into a minor–but majorly interesting–edition of Shakespeare from the 1780s, and a “listicle” of the best editorial insults by the first generations of Shakespeare editors.

Shown here is Lewis Theobald’s book-long attack on Alexander Pope’s edition of Shakespeare, Shakespeare Restored.

The final act, “Friends, Romans, countrymen” explores the myriad ways Shakespeare has been transformed for a variety of audiences in the modern era, from the child to the bibliophile. Miniature books abound in this section, as do gorgeously illustrated editions of Shakespeare’s plays. Blinking beautifully over this section of the exhibition will be our famous watch ticking out Sonnets 18 and 130 in Morse code.

Shown here are photographs of famous Shakespearean actors whose performances also inspired textual editions of the Bard.

Shown here are photographs of famous Shakespearean actors alongside books associated with them.

One of more almost 150 miniature volumes of Shakespeare in the exhibition. This example is from the 1904 Ellen Terry edition of Shakespeare.

Other highlights include images from the monumental Boydell Shakespeare and a how-to-collate Shakespeare workstation.

Our miniature Boydell Shakespeare Gallery with prints of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, and King Henry VI, Part Two.

The exhibition includes a feature on how technology of the mid-twentieth century allowed editors to compare copies of Shakespeare’s works with greater accuracy and speed. While we pay a great deal attention to Charlton Hinman’s collating machine, we have installed a more user-friendly Lindstrand Comparator in the gallery so visitors can try to compare two pages themselves. It takes a bit of time to see comfortably through the lenses, but soon you will see variants pop off the page! Come check it out.

The exhibition runs through December 29, 2016, with the Folger Shakespeare’s Library’s First Folio making its appearance for the month of October. A public reception will be held on Friday February 26^th from 5–7 PM. All are welcome and encouraged to attend!

On View Now: Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution

Posted on January 14, 2016 by

We’re pleased to announce the opening of our latest mini-exhibition, “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution: The American Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1970,” which runs through the end of February and is part of the University’s 2016 community MLK Day celebration, “The Call to Higher Ground.” The exhibition is curated by our own Ervin Jordan, research archivist.

Jordan writes, “The American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1970) intensely transformed American society and inspired similar movements worldwide. Its nonviolent protests and civil resistance for equal citizenship under the law enhanced African-Americans’ self-dignity and collective commitment in the face of white supremacist terrorism. Others too, were allies, martyrs and beneficiaries of this undertaking to fulfill the promises America had made on paper since 1776.”

The exhibit’s 24 items on display comprise letters, newsletters, photographs, poetry and reports; special items of interest include:

A 1960 NAACP voting rights comic book
Alex Haley’s 1963 interview of Malcolm X
A 1969 Black Panther Party coloring book
A 1976 Julian Bond for President bumper sticker
An inscribed copy of Coretta Scott King’s published memoirs

One of the exhibition’s three display cases features the life and career of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., charismatic leader of the Civil Rights Movement and “a drum major for justice and peace” in his letters and publications.

Please stop by for a visit!

Exhibition Prep Special: Translating Shakespeare’s Sonnets into…Morse Code?

Posted on November 5, 2015 by

This week we are pleased to feature the third guest blog post from graduate curatorial assistant Kelly Fleming, who will be sharing selected treats from our upcoming exhibition, “Shakespeare by the Book,” over the coming months. The exhibition opens February 22, 2016.

Most readers of Shakespeare’s sonnets associate his poetry with love. In films and literary works of all kinds, Shakespeare’s sonnets are quoted and used to confirm the love between two people. Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”) is probably one of the most popular readings on the wedding circuit. As much as Shakespeare’s sonnets are about love, time is more likely to be the subject of the poet’s meditations. The first seventeen—“the procreation sonnets”—urge a young man to make much of time, to get married, and to procreate so that he can live forever through his children. Many of the sonnets after 17 continue to address, to personify, and to apostrophize time, as these first lines illustrate: “Against that time, if ever that time come” (Sonnet 49); “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” (Sonnet 73); “No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change” (Sonnet 123).

Knowing the sonnets’ preoccupation with time, I completely “nerded out” when I discovered that someone had turned Shakespeare’s sonnets into a watch. My own scholarship has nothing to do with Shakespeare, but every time Molly, our curator here at Special Collections, mentioned the watch to me, I would get so excited that I would say in a high-pitched voice, “But Shakespeare’s sonnets are all about time!” I cannot imagine a more perfect way to represent his sonnets than a watch.

Pictured here is the watch with the instructional booklet open to the title page.

The Sonnets Watch Book is book inside a watch; it is a watch that ticks out Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…”) in Morse code. It was dreamed up and built by three Seattle teenagers (credited on the watch as “Alex, Clara, and Nicholas”) and published by miniature-book publisher and technologist Robert Orndorff (who happens to be the father of two of the makers). Only eighteenth copies of The Sonnets Watch Book are in existence and number eighteen will appear in our exhibition. Bright lights flicker out the letters and punctuation marks of each sonnet. Even though I can’t understand Morse code, there is something incredibly moving about watching the lights change and knowing that Shakespeare’s words are still slowly being repeated throughout time.

Here is an image of the watch as it ticks out one of Shakespeare’s sonnets in Morse code.

Last week, I spent a full hour close reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 and talking about time with my ENGL 3810 students. We were stuck on the following lines for a while:

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

Shakespeare’s answer to this question is his sonnet. Unlike the sea, stone, or shining metals, his “black ink” may be able to withstand the rages of time. His “black ink” will continue to “shine bright” and tell of his love. As my students will tell you, this is exactly what happened. We spent twenty-five minutes of our class on four lines because his “black ink” does still “shine bright” in the history of literature.

Imagine, then, an object that literalizes the hope, the wish of this sonnet. Shakespeare’s words, his “black ink,” actually “[shining] bright” in little yellow, green, and red blinking lights on the face of a watch.

Now, who is excited?

Click on the link below for a video of the watch in action and proof that Shakespeare’s sonnets are now more portable than ever before. The Sonnets Watchbook will be on view—alive and ticking—in “Shakespeare by the Book: Four Centuries of Printing, Editing, and Publishing,” which runs February 22-December 2016 at the University of Virginia Library.

Oh, and in case you are wondering about the history of literature translated into code, perhaps you would like to see Monty Python’s take on the topic. They start with Wuthering Heights and go on from there…make sure to stay to the end!:

Exhibition Prep Special: Searching for Shakespeare in Booksellers’ Records

Posted on October 22, 2015 by

This week we are pleased to feature the second guest blog post from graduate curatorial assistant Kelly Fleming, who will be sharing selected treats from our upcoming exhibition, “Shakespeare by the Book,” over the coming months. The exhibition opens February 22, 2016.

My first two weeks at Special Collections were spent hoisting hulking ledgers from the stacks and placing them gently onto cradles to investigate whether two early booksellers in Virginia sold Shakespeare. After the first day, I found my legs covered in wisps of binding and my hands stained with “red rot” from the ledgers’ leather bindings. Thank goodness for gloves.

Here’s what my gloves looked like after several ledgers. Imagine what my bare hands looked like before I put them on.

I combed through the account books of Bell & Co., a printer in Alexandria, Virginia active in the nineteenth century and the Virginia Gazette, a newspaper and printer active in Williamsburg, Virginia in the eighteenth century. My eyes sought any spelling variation of the name “Shakespeare” amidst endless purchases of envelopes and paper. Despite our modern perception that Shakespeare’s works are “classics” and that he is a father of the English language, his place in the literary canon was yet to be defined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As my findings attest, Virginians chose to read a myriad of other things more frequently than Shakespeare.

Only one copy of Shakespeare was sold by the Virginia Gazette in the years 1750–1752 and 1764–1766. Even though David Garrick was busily working to increase the popularity of Shakespeare in London at this time, the colonies seem to have been a step behind. Since Williamsburg was home to the Virginia legislature and the College of William & Mary, it is not surprising that the books sold by the Virginia Gazette were largely educational: Latin grammar textbooks, dictionaries, and religious texts like the Book of Common Prayer. Despite the fact that Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (a book the Virginia Gazette also sold) marks Shakespeare’s works as the first usage of many English words, students were not studying Shakespeare. The education system in the eighteenth century trained students (that is to say, young men) in what they considered the “classics”: philosophical and literary texts from ancient Greece and Rome. When students did read literary texts in English, it seems that they read English epics, which use classical elements to describe contemporary England. The epic works of Milton, Dryden, and Pope, for example, appear numerous times in the accounts of the Virginia Gazette. In addition to English epics, we find our copy of Shakespeare alongside another genre excluded from the education system: the novel. In the ledger in our exhibition, we find popular English novels such as Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa and Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random.

Page of Virginia Gazette Day Book showing the purchase of Theobald's edition of Shakespeare (MSS 467)

Page of Virginia Gazette Day Book showing a purchase of Theobald’s edition of Shakespeare (MSS 467)

Joseph Hutchings purchased 8 volumes of of Shakespeare "for [his] self" (MSS 467).

The Virginia Gazette records show Joseph Hutchings purchasing 8 volumes of Shakespeare “for [him] self” (MSS 467).

Alongside Shakespeare in the Virginia Gazette Daybook, I found a recorded purchase of two of Samuel Richardson's novels, "Clarissa: Or, the History of a Young Lady" (1747-8) and "The History of Sir Charles Grandison" (1753).

Alongside Shakespeare in the Virginia Gazette records are two of Samuel Richardson’s novels, “Clarissa: Or, the History of a Young Lady” (1747-8) and “The History of Sir Charles Grandison” (1753). (MSS 467)

Alongside Shakespeare in the Virginia Gazette records are many educational texts such as Lilly’s Latin Grammar. (MSS 467)

Thanks largely to new performances of Shakespeare plays, Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee, and new editions of Shakespeare works in the eighteenth century, Shakespeare’s words come alive by the nineteenth century. The accounts of Bell & Co. reflect this increasing popularity. I found seven copies of Shakespeare sold at Bell & Co. over the course of the nineteenth century (1809–1899). The specific ledger we are using in the exhibition shows Shakespeare alongside Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple, Wordsworth, Cooper’s Virgil, and the Bible.

Bell & Co. sold Shakespeare for "6.50" (MSS 2989).

Bell & Co. sold Shakespeare for “6.50.” Different types of currency were in use in the colonies at this time. Without further research, all we can tell from this record is that it is expensive and suggests that the reader bought a multi-volume set (MSS 2989).

On the same page, Bell & Co. recorded the purchase of Susanna Rowson's novel "Charlotte Temple" and two grammar books.

On the same page as Shakespeare, Bell & Co. recorded the purchase of Susanna Rowson’s novel “Charlotte Temple” and two grammar books. (MSS 2989)

Finally, in the twentieth century, Shakespeare begins to be studied and to be studied as a father of the English language. Today, Shakespeare is probably the most often memorized, most often recited English author in schools. I still can recite the famous speech of Titania’s from A Midsummer’s Night Dream that I memorized in the tenth grade and that begins “Set your heart at rest.” But as the exhibition at the Special Collections Library will show us in February, our hearts do anything but rest when we hear the heartbeat of Shakespeare’s iambs, even four hundred years after his death.

On View Now: American Broadsides to 1860

Posted on October 20, 2015 by

This week’s feature is a post by George Riser, Collections and Instruction Assistant for the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

“American Broadsides to 1860 features 72 broadsides—almost exclusively American and dating prior to 1860—drawn from the holdings of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. Arrayed in six sections—Proclamations, Political, Military, Goods and Services, Town and Country, and Literary Arts—these examples attest to the broadside’s varied content and breadth of function, while offering a fascinating account of life in early America. They also complement what is perhaps the most significant of all American broadsides: the “Dunlap Broadside” (first printing of the Declaration of Independence) on view in the adjacent Declaration Gallery.” Text by David Whitesell from the exhibition’s introductory panel.

One case of the exhibition American Broadsides to 1860. Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

The following is a sampling of what you will find in each of the exhibition’s sections.

The earliest broadside on display is found in the “Proclamations” section. “By the King. A Proclamation for the Suppressing a Rebellion Lately Raised Within the Plantation of Virginia,” is King Charles II’s 1676 response to Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion, which was raging in the fledgling Virginia colony.

Detail of By the King. (fill in). Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

Detail of Charles II (1630-1685). By the King. A Proclamation for the Suppressing a Rebellion Lately Raised Within the Plantation of Virginia. London: Assigns of John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1676. (Broadside 1676 .G744 S63). Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

In the “Military” category, “Boston, 26th of June, 1775,” features a first-hand account, printed just nine days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, offering a somewhat rosy view of the catastrophic attempt to dislodge 1,200 colonial troops who had taken up positions in the hills surrounding Boston.

Boston, 26th of June, 1775. [Boston: John Howe, 1775] (Broadside 1775 .B67). Photograph by Petrina Jackson

In the “Political” section, the “Declaration of the Anti-slavery Convention, 1833,” calls for the formation of a national anti-slavery society—henceforth to be known as the American Anti-Slavery Society—and lists the names of delegates from ten states.

Detail of Declaration of the Anti-slavery Convention. [Philadelphia] : Merrihew & Gunn, [1833] (Broadside .W54 Z99 1833). Photograph by Petrina Jackson.. Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

The “Farm and Country” category features an 1828 broadside advertising a Gander Pull outside of Petersburg, Virginia. A Gander Pull involves the hanging of a neck-greased goose upside down from a scaffold, whereby well-lubricated participants attempt to decapitate the bird as they ride past at full gallop. The event also featured a fish dinner and a barbecue.

Gary, Rich[ar]d. Gander Pull. Petersburg [Va.]: Old Dominion Office, [1828] (Broadside 1828 .G27). Photograph by Petrina

Two University of Virginia broadsides are found in the “Goods and Services” section: “Explanations, of the Ground Plan of the University of Virginia,” printed in Charlottesville in 1824. This broadside, printed to accompany Peter Maverick’s 1822 engraved “Plan of the University,” describes the pavilions, locations of the hotels, and the placement of the Rotunda, as well as the general layout of the only partly completed university Grounds. The 1825 program, “University of Virginia. This Institution Was Opened on the 5th Day of March, 1825,” was used to draft the text of the program for the second session of 1826. The first line—“This institution was opened on the 5^th day of 1825”—is crossed out and changed in manuscript to read, “will commence its next session on the 1st day of February, 1826.” Other alterations indicate changes made for the second session.

University of Virginia. Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

University of Virginia. This Institution Was Opened on the 5th Day of March, 1825 … [Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1825?] (Broadside 1825 .U65).. Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

In the “Literary” section don’t miss, “Theatre. On Friday Evening, September 15th, Will be Presented the Grand Operatical Romance of The Forty Thieves.” This 1809 announcement for a performance at the Park Theatre in New York features appearances by both of Edgar Allan Poe’s parents, eight months after his birth. In this dramatization of Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves, Mr. [David] Poe appears as the 1st Robber, Mrs. [Elizabeth] Poe as the clever slave girl, Morgiana.

Forty Thieves. Photograph by Petrina Jackson

Theatre. On Friday Evening, September 15th, Will be Presented the Grand Operatical Romance of The Forty Thieves. [New York: New Theatre, 1809] (PS2630.5 .T54 1809). Photograph by Petrina Jackson

In addition, there are 64 other fascinating broadsides on display, each offering a unique and varied look at American culture in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The exhibition may be viewed in the barrel-vaulted hallway on the first floor of the Harrision/Small building, just outside of the Albert and Shirley Small Declaration Gallery.

On View Now: The Lure of Italy

Posted on September 25, 2015 by

This week’s feature is a guest post by Kelly Fleming, Special Collections curatorial assistant and doctoral candidate in the U.Va. English Department.

“The Lure of Italy,” an exhibition drawn from Mildred Abraham’s personal collection of rare books on the Grand Tour, offers viewers a chance to travel back in time to experience the Italy famous for its classical origins, Carnival, and banditti. During the eighteenth century, Italy was usually the last stop on the Grand Tour. Sons of the aristocracy toured the continent with their tutors for one to three years in order to further their education and broaden their outlook. With the advent of the neoclassical aesthetic in the eighteenth century, Italy was the perfect place to study the art and the architecture of the ancients.

Books featuring ancient views from the exhibition "The Lure of Italy." Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

Books featuring the people of Italy and ancient views from the exhibition “The Lure of Italy.” Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

Detail from one of the exhibition cases. Photograph by Petrina Jackson.

In addition to their studies, men on their Grand Tours frequently attended the extravagant celebration of Carnival, participating in masquerade balls and grand parades. All this came to an end during the French Revolution (1789–1799). After the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), a new class began to flock to Italy: the tourist. Tourists no longer came for the classical Grand Tour. They travelled to Italy to explore the history, art, and architecture of the Renaissance. Moreover, a new group of travellers began to regularly tour Italy in the nineteenth century: Americans. As Abraham’s collection attests, women also began to travel to Italy in order to broaden their horizons. Frequently both male and female tourists turned their experiences in Italy into fictional works, such as Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1879), whose sketch “Italian Hours” appears in the exhibit, and Elizabeth Williams Champney’s novel, Three Vassar Girls in Italy (1886). “The Lure of Italy” contains exciting visual and textual sketches of the people, traditions, and landscape of Italy over the course of three centuries.

“Gossip” from Mrs Comyns Carr, North Italian Folk, Sketches of Town and Country Life, Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott (London, Chatto and Windus, 1878). Image by Digital Production Group.

My favorite piece is a sketch of a rather dashing Italian bandit from Maria Graham’s Three Months Passed in the Mountains East Of Rome, During the Year 1819.

Maria Graham, Three Months Passed in the Mountains East Of Rome, During the Year 1819, Second Edition (London, Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821). Image by Digital Production Group.

Mildred Abraham, a member of the prestigious Grolier club, was a Rare Books staff member for twenty-three years. Her collection contains hundreds of volumes on travel in Italy, ranging from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries. The bulk of her collection is described in Pine Coffin’s seminal work, The Bibliography of British and American Travel. Her collection, of which the exhibit is a small, but fabulous sampling, is a promised gift to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Bookplate of Mildred K. Abraham. Image by Digital Production Group.

If you need some Italian color to combat winter’s gray skies, or if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to ride a tandem bicycle on your honeymoon through Italy, come see “The Lure of Italy” at Special Collections.

“The Lure of Italy” is on display on the first floor of the Harrison-Small building through December 31, 2015.

On View Now: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Posted on August 20, 2015 by

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Special Collections holds a collection of more than 1500 items related to this and Charles Dodgson’s other works, such as Through The Looking Glass and various works on logic and mathematics. The portion of the collection relating to Alice is the largest, and includes hundreds of editions as well as parodies, interpretations, and reimaginings of Alice’s adventures from all periods and in many different languages. This collection was built by U.Va. Professor of Philosophy Peter Heath, who taught at the university from 1962 to 1995. His own book, The Philosopher’s Alice (1974), juxtaposes the novel’s text with Heath’s own philosophical commentary.

In honor of Professor Heath’s collection, undergraduate Wolfe Docent Susan Swicegood curated the mini-exhibition “Happy 150th Birthday, Alice!” Faced with the daunting prospect of selecting just a handful of items from the remarkable Heath collection, Susan decided to focus on how illustrators have envisioned the figure of Alice herself over the course of the book’s publishing history. She did a beautiful job, and has filled three exhibition cases with items to stimulate memories and artistic inspiration for all generations of Alice readers. Here are just a few examples to tempt you:

This detail comes from a pop-up edition advertised as a “come to life panorama.” With her rosy cheeks and curly hair, this Alice looks more like a cherub than a curious Victorian child. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by A. L. Bowley. (London: Raphael Tuck, [1920s]). (PR 4611 .A7 1920b). Peter Heath Lewis Carroll Collection. Gift of Diana Salcedo and Philip Heath.

: Alice parodies use the book’s playful structure as an avenue for political or social commentary. This space-age Alice no longer travels down a rabbit hole, but to a new planet. Renzo Rossott, Alice in 2000, illustrated by Grazia Nidasio. (London : Ward Lock Limited, [1970]) (PR4611 .A72 R68 1970). Peter Heath Lewis Carroll Collection.Gift of Diana Salcedo and Philip Heath.

Alice got a big makeover in the 1970s, as modern printing techniques gave illustrators brighter and more dynamic colors that embody childish imagination, and finally giving Wonderland its psychedelic flair. This beautiful pop-up book displays a fabulous, hippie Alice at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Retold by Albert G Miller, designed by Paul Taylor, illustrated by Dave Chambers, Gwen Gordon and John Spencer. (New York: Random house [1968]) (PR4611 .A72 M53 1968). Peter Heath Lewis Carroll Collection. Gift of Diana Salcedo and Philip Heath.

The exhibition is broken into three sections: “The Origins of Alice,” which looks at how Alice’s visual identity first emerged, “Alice in the Golden Age of Illustration,” focusing on the lavish aesthetic of the early twentieth century, and “An Alice for Every Generation,” looking at Alices from the 1960s through our own time, with examples ranging from the iconic Disney animation aesthetic to the edgy pen and ink imaginings of Ralph Steadman.

We encourage you to stop by and visit the exhibition, which is on view in the First Floor Gallery through September 18. It’s a visual feast–or should we say, tea party?

First Floor Exhibitions Explore Slavery and Abolition

Posted on June 16, 2015 by

The Harrison/Small First Floor Gallery is excited to announce our two summer exhibitions: “My Own Master: Resistance to American Slavery” and the mini-exhibition “‘Read, Weep, and Reflect’: Creating Young Abolitionists through Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Together these two exhibitions extend some of the themes explored in our Harrison Gallery exhibition, “Who Shall Tell the Story: Voices of Civil War Virginia. ” Come in out of the heat and spend some time with these marvelous exhibitions. Some images to tempt you follow…

The larger exhibition, “My Own Master,” is of particular note because it is the first exhibition in memory that the University of Virginia Library has mounted on the topic of slavery (a fact discovered in discussions with long-time Special Collections staff). Though artifacts relating to slavery have been included and the topic discussed in past exhibitions, slavery has not been the sole subject of an exhibition here. We are very pleased to end that tradition this summer. Even more exciting, in 2018 we will mount a major exhibition on the topic of slavery at the University of Virginia in the Harrison Gallery, in support of the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University.

“My Own Master” showcases thirty remarkable items from the collections demonstrating some of the ways that blacks–slave, free, and freed–fought against slavery. Curator Petrina Jackson describes the exhibition’s project as follows: “When the white abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay published his four-volume A Popular History of the United States in 1876, he covered slavery and abolitionism in the final volume. He wrote, ‘the African in America whether bond or free had learned the habit of submission and had rarely shown any spirit of revolt.’ Gay wrote this even though he labored closely with black abolitionists who risked their freedom and their lives to secure the freedom of their enslaved brethren. He likewise documented the harrowing stories of fugitive slaves, who wagered everything to gain control of their personhood, their bodies, their lives. “My Own Master” challenges the notion of black passivity and shows African Americans as active agents in breaking the bonds of slavery.”

The exhibition displays artifacts that document a variety of forms of rebellion: running away, planning insurrections, writing abolitionist works and manifestoes, and buying one’s own and one’s family’s freedom. It concludes with a recently acquired broadside printed by African-American leaders in Richmond a year after the city surrendered.

Portraits of black abolitionists from books in our collections are featured in the gallery and on the poster.

Our mini-exhibition, “Read, Weep, and Reflect: Creating Young Abolitionists through Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was curated by undergraduate Wolfe Docent Susan Swicegood (CLAS 2015, Curry 2016). Curator Molly Schwartzburg asked Susan to develop an exhibition around a recently acquired early puzzle about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, which is our second such puzzle. Susan tracked down a wonderful range of children-related publications and “tie-in products” from the nineteenth century. It is not to be missed!

The new puzzle is on the left.

Games, theater tickets, and more!

Come on by and take a look!

William Blake, Visionary

Posted on January 22, 2015 by

A new exhibition, “William Blake, Visionary / Envisioning William Blake,” is now on view in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library’s 1^st floor exhibition gallery. William Blake (1757-1827) died in obscurity, the genius of his visionary art only imperfectly comprehended by an appreciative few. Nearly two centuries later, however, Blake is universally recognized as one of England’s greatest artists and poets. This two-part exhibition begins by briefly outlining selected aspects of his life and art. The second half traces the fascinating process by which later generations have rediscovered Blake, gathered and disseminated his rare and widely dispersed work, and sought to envision this visionary artist.

Part I of the exhibition: “William Blake, Visionary.”

The exhibition draws primarily from the Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski Reference Collection of William Blake, a magnificent gift to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library received in 2010. Its 275 titles in some 400 volumes have remedied a long-standing weakness in our formidable holdings of 18^th– and 19^th-century British literature. Internationally renowned for having formed an exceptionally comprehensive collection of 20^th-century English and American poetry, Raymond Danowski also built an impressive collection of works by and about William Blake. We are deeply grateful to the Danowskis for designating U.Va. as its permanent home, and for continuing to augment the collection.

The engraved frontispiece and title page to Robert Blair, The Grave: a poem (London: T. Bensley for R. H. Cromek, 1808), illustrated by William Blake. The portrait of Blake at the age of 48 was engraved after a painting by Thomas Phillips.

Few of Blake’s contemporaries displayed genius as wide-ranging as his. Although mostly self-taught, Blake was admired for his outstanding poetic gifts. Yet because his verse was self-published in a small number of copies, it was little read during his lifetime. As an artist, Blake was an innovative master of several media: engraving, etching, wood engraving, drawing, watercolor, and tempera painting. He was best known in his own day as an engraver and etcher of book illustrations, in particular for his designs to Edward Young’s Night thoughts (1797) and Robert Blair’s The grave (1808). Perhaps Blake’s greatest achievement as an engraver was his Illustrations of the Book of Job (1826), though like many of his publications, it was not a commercial success.

Frontispiece to William Blake’s illuminated book, Europe: A Prophecy (1794), reproduced from the 1969 facsimile edition printed by the Trianon Press for the William Blake Trust.

It was in the so-called “illuminated books” that Blake found an ideal medium for his singular genius. Blake’s intense spiritual life—what some contemporaries considered madness—found expression in verse and unforgettable images which Blake drew in reverse on copper plates, etched in relief, printed in colors, and then hand-illuminated with watercolor, paint, even gold leaf. It was a process under his complete artistic control, a process which empowered him to publish copies on demand. Sadly, demand proved to be slight.

Part II of the exhibition: “Envisioning William Blake.”

Part of the fascination of William Blake is the process by which he has steadily, but unevenly, risen from obscurity to universal fame. Though his literary and artistic output was not overlarge, many have found something irresistible within its singularity and diversity. So it was with the Pre-Raphaelites, who admired Blake’s verse and his uncompromising artistic vision in the face of prolonged adversity. Later audiences have warmed to his brilliant images, his mysticism, and the challenge of comprehending the abstruse philosophy enshrined in Blake’s illuminated books.

Home page of the William Blake Archive (www.blakearchive.org), a comprehensive online resource for Blake studies. A pioneering effort in the digital humanities, the website was launched in 1996. U.Va.’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) has provided significant technical assistance for the site since 1993.

Blake has long been a magnet for scholars who, over the past 150 years, have made substantial progress in solving the puzzles presented by his life and art. Despite a paucity of primary sources, we now know far more about Blake’s life and his innovative artistic methods. Through the labors of Sir Geoffrey Keynes and others, it is likely that nearly all extant copies of Blake’s illuminated books, as well as his drawings, watercolors, paintings, and commercial engravings, have been located and cataloged. Many of these are now accessible in faithful color facsimiles. A multitude of scholars have delineated Blake’s philosophy and debated its meaning. And through advances in the digital humanities—particularly those made at U.Va. over the past two decades—we now have, in the William Blake Archive and other online resources, powerful tools for envisioning Blake in ever new ways.

The exhibition, which is open Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-9 p.m. and Friday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (with occasional exceptions), will remain on view through May 3.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

Notes from Under Grounds

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