Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s final collection of Sherlock Holmes stories turns a century old this week! Published 22 October 1917, His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes includes stories which appeared in The Strand magazine in the first decade of the 20th century, including “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” and “The Disappearance of …
A PhD candidate, Zachary Turpin, made headlines in 2016 and again this year when he announced the discovery of two long-forgotten works by Walt Whitman: a series of newspaper articles entitled “Manly Health and Training” and a short novel, The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: an Auto-Biography. Both texts were recently published in the …
Wordsworth’s poetry was rarely illustrated during his lifetime, but after his death, publishers began issuing collections of his poems accompanied by illustration. Some of Great Britain’s top painters and designers, like Albert Henry Warren, Miles Birket Foster and John McWhirter, provided illustrations for these deluxe editions. Here is a very brief sampling of illustrated Wordsworth …
Special Collections’ newest major exhibit, Welcome to Our Charity Bazaar, features an interesting subgenre of Victorian literature: poems, stories, and books produced for sale at fundraising fairs throughout the 19th century in Great Britain and the United States. Many famous authors of the period contributed pieces which were printed either as standalone items or anthologized …
This week marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of British illustrator John Leech (Aug. 29, 1817). As a teenager, Leech studied medicine, but when his father’s business failed, the young man turned to his first love – drawing – to help support his family. Leech’s first success was producing humorous lithographs in the 1830s. …
The Victorian period saw a huge growth in literacy in the British Isles. In 1841, around 2/3 of adult men were literate and 1/2 of adult women were literate. By the end of the century, literacy was almost universal, with 97% of all adults able to read. As the lower classes joined the ranks of …
Philosopher, naturalist, and writer Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817. To celebrate the life of this influential American writer, Special Collections is displaying first editions of his work in our reference room, including copies of Walden and “Civil Disobedience.” The exhibit, “Walking With Thoreau: A 200th Anniversary Celebration,” is on display throughout the …
Another prominent book of poetry which is having a major anniversary in 2017 is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s collection Renascence and Other Poems. Millay (1892-1950) was a popular lyric poet of the first half of the 20th century, and this was her first book. The title poem, “Renascence,” first appeared in 1912. Millay, aged 19, …
Next year will be the 150th anniversary of the beloved novel Little Women, and if you’ve been following film and television news, you may know that several different production companies are planning on adapting the book for the screen! Alcott’s novels are no stranger to film and television; you may be a fan of one …
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Matthew Arnold’s important collection New Poems (Macmillan, 1867). The collection contains some of Arnold’s best known poems, such as “Dover Beach,” “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse,” and “Thyrsis.” It also reprints his long poem “Empedocles on Etna,” which Arnold first published in 1852 and then …