Review: Houghton Library at 75 (2018)
Laura Starratt
Heather Cole and John Overholt, eds. Houghton Library at 75: A Celebration of Its Collections, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018. 128 p. Paper, $24.99.
The catalog, Houghton Library at 75: A Celebration of its Collections documents the vast collecting areas of the Houghton Library. Created to the celebrate the 75th anniversary of the opening of the building at Harvard University, this artfully bound soft cover book includes fine photographs from the collections with descriptive explanations of not only the item but also the donors who built the Houghton Library collections.
The book starts with a frontispiece by Laurent de Brunhoff of Babar brings his ABC to Houghton Library. Which tells the reader that this is an accessible book, meant to bring information with a sense of fun. The foreword, written by Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University and Lincoln Professor of History, and Preface, by Thomas Hyry, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library and Director of Arts and Special Collections of the Harvard College Library, highlight the history of the Library, the building, the collections, and the growing work of their archivists who make the materials accessible via digital surrogates and access points. The introduction, written by Heather Cole, Assistant Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts and Curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection and John Overholt, Curator of the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Early Modern Books and Manuscript, dispels the idea that a special collections library is a dusty room of ancient tomes — though there are a significant amount of ancient tomes represented here — and explains, through a brief history, the interest of the organization in collecting history, including that which happens today. “New acquisitions,” write Cole and Overholt, “reflect not only the traditional collecting strengths of the library but also trends in scholarship and the varied ways researchers use our materials,” and that “[w]e […] must move beyond the privileged, white, male voices that traditionally dominated Houghton’s shelves […]” (xi). The inclusion of Jamaica Kincaid’s laptop highlights not only the new topics Houghton Library collections, but also points to new formats being pursued. This format also bookends well with the introduction where the authors explained the archives’ use of technology to identify and curate the born digital material held within the Library.
This work does a fine job of covering a vast collection with such a small group of images. It starts with some of the earliest writing: the papyrus of a fragment of The Odyssey, Greek texts, and a Book of Hours, as well as, of course, the Guttenburg Bible and Shakespeare’s First Folio. Also included are works of great writers and artists, covering the spectrum, from William Blake to John James Audubon to Emily Dickinson to Allen Ginsberg. However, there are also intimate items presented such as Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House photograph albums that show personal and family views of the writer as well as items from the Harvard University alum William James collection that document his interest as an artist, a traveler, and in the medical field before founding the field of modern psychology. There are childhood, miniature books by Charlotte Bronte and her brother, Branwell, and A Collection of Various Kinds of Poetry by an 18th century five year old alongside Copernicus’ De Revolutinibus Orbium Cᴔlestium. The catalog was illuminating; every page showcases another beautiful image of an impressive item with a succinct explanation of the item as well as some context within the collection. The curators, as they explain in the introduction, periodically turn the path of the catalog toward away from the “privileged, white male voice,” to highlight images including those from The Pictorial Autobiography of Half Moon, An Uncapa Sioux Chief (1868–1876), a poster of Paul Robeson as Othello, and Wole Soyinka’s prison diary (1967–1969). However, later entries, including the Black Hero comics, the Star Trek costume designs, and the many annotated books (including an annotated MacBeth by Edward Gordon Craig showing his changing view over 65 years, T. S. Elliot’s Collected Poems annotated by Allen Ginsberg, and a Little Gidding Gospel Harmony annotated by King Charles I) create a space for the reader to feel personally connected.
In addition to the images of such a variety of historical documents, the captions give a brief overview of the item, often explaining the provenance as well as including information about the specific space in which the item resides. The book is filled with interesting historical tidbits about the collections and their donors. The Gutenberg Bible and William Shakespeare’s First Folio were donated in memory of Harry Elkins Widener, an alum who died at age 27 on the Titanic, and for whom the Harry Elkins Widener Room in the Widener Library is named. Also, John Downame’s The Christian Warfare was donated by John Harvard for whom the college is named and is the lone survivor of Harvard’s 400 volume donation after a devastating 1764 fire. Also notable is Philip Hofer, an alum and founding curator of the Department of Printing and graphic Arts, the most significant contributions by any figure in Houghton history including Peter Apian’s Astronomicum Caesareum, a letter from Elizabeth I to King Edward VI, and Afzal Al-Din Shirvant Khaqani’s Tuhfat Al-’Iraqayan among others listed in this work. Also notable are the donations of John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward whose collection comprises books, scores, librettos, and other materials relating to public performances of music and dance including works by Luigi Cherubini who experimented with the printing of his scores, and settled on “chemical printing,” which is explained in the catalog.
Houghton Library at 75: A Celebration of its Collections is a beautiful work and a nice representation of the materials held in the Houghton Library. The introduction is interesting in offering a view into the future of the collecting area of the library and the images and stories are delightful for someone interested in the overall collections.
Laura Starratt is the Manuscript Archivist at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University.
