• The Letters of William Ernest Henley to Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by Damian Atkinson (Rivendale, 2008).  W.E. Henley was the influential editor of the Scots Observer, which published works by such writers as Rudyard Kipling, J.M. Barrie, H.G. Wells, and Alice Meynell.  Henley was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the two collaborated unsuccessfully on several plays.  This book publishes Henley’s correspondence with Stevenson, chronicling their personal and professional relationship.

• The Trollope Collector: a Record of Writings by and Books about Anthony Trollope, by Lance Tingay (Silverbridge, 1985).  Special Collections has an extensive collection of editions by novelist Anthony Trollope.  This bibliography covers his literary output and secondary sources about his life and works.

• An Annotated International Bibliography of Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Books, edited by Byron Sewell and Clare Imholtz (Oak Knoll, 2008).  This comprehensive descriptive bibliography of Carroll’s challenging Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded lists all known editions of the books, as well as foreign-language translations, parodies, and criticism.  Special Collections owns three presentation copies of Sylvie and Bruno and two presentation copies of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded!

1.  Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the wanderer: a tale (second edition, 1821).  This famous Gothic novel, by the great-uncle of Oscar Wilde, tells the story of the life and wanderings of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a prolonged life.
2.  Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven” (1845).  Poe first published his famous poem in the magazine American Review in February 1845.

3.  Bram Stoker, Dracula (first edition, 1897).  This copy of the most famous vampire story of all time is signed by Stoker to an unnamed recipient on the front flyleaf.

Many publications provided their young readers with educational articles intermixed with uplifting fiction. Especially in magazines published by religious organizations, such as The Children’s Magazine, issued by the General Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union in New York, or The Child’s Companion and Juvenile Instructor, issued by London’s Religious Tract Society, pious and moral fiction is interspersed with true stories from foreign missions and religious instruction.  The illustration at the left comes from the popular serialized novel “Willy Maitland,” a tale of the short and exemplary life of a pious little boy, found in the 1862 volume of The Child’s Companion and Juvenile Instructor.

Juvenile magazines betray prevailing attitudes toward gender roles.  In England, periodicals like The Boy’s Own Paper and The Union Jack printed adventure and sports stories and tales of heroism for boys. These stories promoted an ideal of manhood characterized by moral rectitude, Christian values, bravery, and protection of the weak. In contrast, girls’ periodicals in Victorian England provided “elevating” stories for young ladies, teaching them to fulfill their duties as sisters and daughters in preparation for duties as wives and mothers.

In magazines like The Girl’s Own Paper, fiction was interspersed with poetry and articles on homemaking skills and dress and grooming. Stories aimed at girls often preached gratitude for one’s blessings and the supremacy of domestic responsibilities over creative pursuits. These tales differ in tone from girls’ stories appearing in juvenile periodicals across the Atlantic. In the American children’s magazine St. Nicholas (founded 1873), girls are portrayed as socially and economically independent than their English counterparts. Contributions by Louisa May Alcott and others describe girls in artistic, musical, and performing careers; by the late 19th century, St. Nicholas was publishing stories about women college students.

We are pleased to announce that Jack Weyland has donated his papers to Perry Special Collections.  At this point the papers consist of letters and critiques from his publisher and others from 1979-2002.  Jack’s writing career is still in full swing with two books recently published.  As a result the collection will continue to grow.

• Ronald Knapp, Of life immense: the prophetic vision of Walt Whitman.  Outskirts Press, 2008. A study of Whitman’s belief in universal religion.

• J. R. LeMaster, Walt Whitman and the Persian poets: a study in literature and religion.  Ibex, 2009. An examination of the influence of Persian mystic poetry on Whitman, including a critical comparison of Whitman with poets Rumi and Hafez.

• Robert Roper, Now the drum of war: Walt Whitman and his brothers in the Civil War. Walker, 2008. Drawn from family letters and Whitman’s poems, this book chronicles the Whitman family’s experience during the Civil War.

• Kanwar Singh, ed.,  The poetry of Walt Whitman: New Critical Perspectives.  Atlantic, 2009. A collection of critical and interpretive essays on Whitman by global scholars.

Special Collections is celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson this month with a small exhibit in our lobby area on the first floor of the library.

Alfred Tennyson, first Baron Tennyson (born August 6, 1809), was the preeminent English poet of the 19th century.  His writing career spans nearly the entire Victorian period and reflects much of the social, intellectual, and theological turmoil of the era.  Tennyson tackled such subjects as women’s education, domestic relations, patriotism, and the tension between religious faith and doubt.

Alfred was the fourth of 12 children of a Lincolnshire clergyman; his elder brother Charles was also an esteemed poet.  Alfred attended Cambridge University, publishing his first collections of poems while still a student.  He published few poems during the 1830’s, finally bowing to pressure from publishers for new work in the 1840’s.  Tennyson published his greatest work, In Memoriam, in May 1850.  At the end of the same year, Tennyson was appointed England’s Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth to the post.  Besides the patriotic and nationalistic verse he wrote in the office of laureate, he continued to write poems and plays, including poetry inspired by Arthurian legends. Queen Victoria, an admirer of Tennyson’s poems, offered him a baronetcy several times (which he finally accepted in 1884).  Tennyson died at the age of 84 in October 1892.

Born Frances E. Ternan, she was the oldest daughter of actors Thomas Ternan and Frances Jarman. She and her sisters performed on stage as “infant phenomena” as children, and continued their stage careers as young women. Her youngest sister, Ellen, is best remembered today as Charles Dickens’ mistress. The middle Ternan sister Maria made a career as an artist and journalist.

Frances moved to Florence, Italy to study opera as a young woman. She eventually found employment as a governess to the daughter of Thomas Adolphus Trollope, a widowed author. T.A. Trollope, known to the family as Tom, was the son of Fanny Trollope and the brother of Anthony Trollope, both well-known and prolific novelists.

Frances and Tom were married in 1866 (he was 25 years older than she). They spent much of their life together in Italy, supporting each others’ writing careers. Frances authored a number of novels; Tom, who was an Italian historian, also wrote novels to supplement their income. Together they wrote a book on Italian travel. After her husband’s death, Frances wrote a biography of her famous mother-in-law.

Special Collections contains an extensive collection of works by this talented family, particularly Fanny and Anthony. We continue to search out and acquire the writings of writers like T.A. Trollope and Frances E. Trollope, whose output is less familiar to modern readers and critics.

G.G. Vandagriff is the author of the popular Alex and Briggie genealogy mystery series.  Her fifth volume in the series, The Hidden Branch, will be out in August of 2009.  This spring a novel of romance and intrigue set in Austria from World War I to the early years of World War II, The Last Waltz, was released and has been very successful.  G.G. has donated files, notes,  and early drafts of The Lost Waltz and other novels.

Aubrey Mace is a new writer who is quickly making a name for herself.  Her debut novel, Spare Change, received the Whitney Award for best romance in 2008.  A young adult novel, My Fairy Grandmother, was published this spring.  A third novel, Santa Maybe, will be released in the fall.  Aubrey donated writing notebooks from Spare Change and My Fairy Grandmother.  Notecards and early drafts were also part of her papers.

We look forward to a long working relationship with these two fine authors.

Selected Doyle first editions in Special Collections

Doyle began his writing career during his days as a medical student in Edinburgh, Scotland. He published his first short story and his first non-fiction medical article in the same month, September 1879.  He continued to publish a number of short stories in the early 1880’s, earning critical acclaim for his first tale of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, A Study in Scarlet, first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887 and later published in book form.  The novel was successful enough that the publisher, Ward Lock, commissioned a sequel (The Sign of the Four).  Doyle also published a number of historical novels and other mysteries in serial form in such periodicals as The Cornhill.

Doyle found his greatest popular success in the early 1890’s with the Sherlock Holmes stories published in the Strand Magazine.  But Doyle began to fear that he would only be known as Holmes’ creator.  He published “The Final Problem,” in which Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty apparently perish.  This enabled Doyle to turn his attention to writing historical fiction, including the Brigadier Gerard stories and The Great Shadow (1892).  He also published other mysteries, medical stories, and two books defending British policy in the Boer War. Doyle returned to Holmes and Watson with The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1902, and, thanks to an offer of $45,000 from an American magazine, wrote the new stories collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905). Doyle continued to write in various genres: historical fiction (Sir Nigel, 1906), science fiction (The Lost World, 1912), and detective fiction (The Valley of Fear, serialized 1914-1915).  During the First World War, he served as a military correspondent and wrote several histories of the war from the perspective of the Allies.  In his last decade, Doyle published his memoirs and became a proponent of the spiritualist movement, the subject of most of his last books.

Special Collections owns many first editions of Doyle’s novels, including some inscribed by the author; periodicals in which Doyle’s stories and novels first appeared; and even the original manuscript copy of one of Doyle’s historical novels, The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents (published 1893).  To find them in the library catalog, limit your search to “Special Collections” in the “library” field, then perform an author search for “Doyle, Arthur Conan.” All the Doyle works in Special Collections can be accessed in our reading room.  Please be aware that Vault Collection items (which are noted as such next to the call number in the library’s catalog records) are only available before 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.