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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsNew Archive Offers Free Access to 22,000 Literary Documents From Great British & American Writers
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Thomas Hardy-- architect, poet, and writer (above)gave us the fierce, stormy romance Far From the Madding Crowd, currently impressing critics in a film adaptation by Thomas Vinterberg. He also gave us Tess of the DUrbervilles, The Return of the Native, and Jude the Obscure, books whose persistently grim outlook might make them too depressing by far were it not for Hardys engrossing prose, unforgettable characterization, and, perhaps most importantly, unshakable sense of place. Hardy set most of his novels in a region he called Wessex, whichmuch like William Faulkners Yoknapatawphais a thinly fictionalized recreation of his rural hometown of Dorchester and its surrounding counties.
Now, thanks to the University of Texas at Austins Harry Ransom Center, we can learn all about this ancient region in South West England, and Hardys transmutation of it, through Hardys own proof copy of a 1905 book by Frank R. Heath called Dorchester (Dorset) and its Surroundings, with revisions in Hardys hand. In the excerpt above, for example, from page 36 of this scholarly work, the author discusses Hardys use of Dorchester in The Mayor of Casterbridge and the so-called Wessex Poems. In the margins on the right, we see Hardys corrections and glosses. Though this may not seem the most exciting piece of Hardy memorabilia, for students of the author and his investment in a rural corner of England, it is indeed a treasure.
The Hardy archive also contains scans of the authors correspondence, manuscripts and signed typescripts, and architectural drawings, like that of St. Juliots Church in Cornwall, above. This extensive digital Hardy collection is but one of many housed in the Ransom Centers Project Reveal, an acronym for Read and View English & American Literature. Read and view you can indeed, through the intimacy of first drafts, manuscripts, personal writing, and other ephemera.
See, for example, a handwritten draft of Oscar Wildes Salome, in French, (excerpt above). Below, we have a handwritten list of Robert Louis Stevensons favorite books, and further down, a manuscript draft of Katherine Mansfields Now I am a plant, a weed from her personal poetry notebook.
Other authors included in the Project Reveal archive include Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Hart Crane, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and William Thackeray. The project, writes the Ransom Center in a press release, generated more than 22,000 high-resolution images, available for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction or fees (but with attribution). The literary storehouse on display here only adds to an already essential collection of artifacts the Ransom Center houses, such as the papers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, syllabi, annotated books, and manuscripts from David Foster Wallace, scrapbooks of Harry Houdini, and the first known photograph ever taken. See a complete list of contents of the Ransom Centers Digital Collections here, and learn more about this amazing library in the heart of Texas at their main site.
Now, thanks to the University of Texas at Austins Harry Ransom Center, we can learn all about this ancient region in South West England, and Hardys transmutation of it, through Hardys own proof copy of a 1905 book by Frank R. Heath called Dorchester (Dorset) and its Surroundings, with revisions in Hardys hand. In the excerpt above, for example, from page 36 of this scholarly work, the author discusses Hardys use of Dorchester in The Mayor of Casterbridge and the so-called Wessex Poems. In the margins on the right, we see Hardys corrections and glosses. Though this may not seem the most exciting piece of Hardy memorabilia, for students of the author and his investment in a rural corner of England, it is indeed a treasure.
The Hardy archive also contains scans of the authors correspondence, manuscripts and signed typescripts, and architectural drawings, like that of St. Juliots Church in Cornwall, above. This extensive digital Hardy collection is but one of many housed in the Ransom Centers Project Reveal, an acronym for Read and View English & American Literature. Read and view you can indeed, through the intimacy of first drafts, manuscripts, personal writing, and other ephemera.
See, for example, a handwritten draft of Oscar Wildes Salome, in French, (excerpt above). Below, we have a handwritten list of Robert Louis Stevensons favorite books, and further down, a manuscript draft of Katherine Mansfields Now I am a plant, a weed from her personal poetry notebook.
Other authors included in the Project Reveal archive include Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Hart Crane, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and William Thackeray. The project, writes the Ransom Center in a press release, generated more than 22,000 high-resolution images, available for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction or fees (but with attribution). The literary storehouse on display here only adds to an already essential collection of artifacts the Ransom Center houses, such as the papers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, syllabi, annotated books, and manuscripts from David Foster Wallace, scrapbooks of Harry Houdini, and the first known photograph ever taken. See a complete list of contents of the Ransom Centers Digital Collections here, and learn more about this amazing library in the heart of Texas at their main site.
http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/new-archive-offers-free-access-to-22000-literary-documents-from-great-british-american-writers.html
(I wasn't sure where to post this, but it's too interesting not to share somewhere here.)
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New Archive Offers Free Access to 22,000 Literary Documents From Great British & American Writers (Original Post)
MerryBlooms
Jul 2015
OP
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)1. Damn. That's friggin' amazing.
I'm most interested in the scrapbooks of Harry Houdini & manuscripts from David Foster Wallace. Thanks MerryBlooms. That's an incredible wealth of material. Something for everyone!
MerryBlooms
(11,769 posts)2. You're welcome!