November 29, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
Special Collections has recently added a number of penny dreadfuls to its Victorian Collection. The term “penny dreadful” refers to a genre of popular fiction which had its heyday in mid- to late-Victorian Britain. Penny dreadfuls were cheaply-produced, often second-rate novels issued in parts, which were consumed by working-class readers. Each part usually cost a penny. The earliest of these novels tended to be gory “shockers,” including gothic fiction and tales of true crime. Later in the Victorian period, publishers issued suspense novels, including adventure stories aimed at teenage boys, although the penny dreadful genre also encompassed romance and historical novels. Penny dreadfuls are quite scarce today, because they were printed on cheap paper and often were handled by multiple readers (people would pool money together to purchase the penny parts).
Special Collections contains examples of penny dreadfuls in loose parts as well as bound sets. They can be found in the library catalog by searching for “penny dreadfuls,” “suspense fiction,” or “street literature” using the “genre/form” search button.
November 9, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
BYU’s Special Collections does not actively collect 18th century English literature, apart from the work of Robert Burns and his circle. However, there are numerous works from the 18th century among our literary holdings. Perhaps the most valuable books in our collections are a first-edition copy of Henry Fielding’s The history of Tom Jones and a copy of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy signed by the author. Special Collections contains copies of other Fielding novels as well as novels by Tobias Smollett, Samuel Johnson, Fanny Burney, and Charlotte Turner Smith. The work of 18th century poets like Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Chatterton, Felicia Hemans, and Ossian (James Macpherson) are found in Special Collections, as are editions of prose works by Daniel Defoe, Sir Richard Steele, James Boswell, and Horace Walpole — including copies of periodicals like The Guardian and The Spectator.
These 18th century works and others can be found in both the Rare and Vault collections. For more information about specific titles and authors in Special Collections’ holdings, search the library catalog or visit Special Collections.
October 25, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
October 17th marks the 100th anniversary of the death of poet and reformer Julia Ward Howe. Howe is probably best known for writing the text of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1862.
Howe was born to a wealthy New York family in 1819. Julia was only five when her mother died, leaving her and her siblings to be raised by their overprotective father. Julia developed her intellect on her own and through the influence of her older brother, whose circle of friends included many of the leading minds of the 1830’s. In 1843, Julia met and quickly married Samuel Gridley Howe, a physician and reformer some 20 years her senior. Their marriage was tumultuous and unhappy; Samuel disapproved of his wife’s ambitions outside the sphere of motherhood. They separated in 1852.
Julia began publishing poems despite her estranged husband’s disapproval. Her first book of poetry, published anonymously in 1854, deals frankly with her marriage and was considered controversial. Julia also became engaged in reform movements including women’s rights and abolition. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” made her famous and launched her as a leading figure in American letters and the reform movement. After her husband died in 1876, Julia lectured all over the world on causes of reform. She edited a woman’s suffrage journal and helped to create Mother’s Day. She died in 1910, aged 91.
Special Collections owns several items related to Julia Ward Howe, including books and a letter which she wrote to newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. These items can be found in the library’s catalog by searching Special Collections’ holdings.
October 7, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
Janet Little (1759–1813) was a contemporary, and admirer, of poet Robert Burns. She was a servant in the household of Frances Dunlop of Dunlop, a patron and correspondent of Robert Burns. In 1789, Little sent Burns some of her poems. Burns was slow to respond to Little (one critic surmises that Burns might have found Little’s poems a little too much in imitation of his own).
Like Burns, Little wrote in both Scots and English. One of Little’s poems even amounts to hero-worship, excitedly describing a visit to Burns’ house in 1791. Burns did subscribe to the book of poetry Little published in 1792, The Poetical Works of Janet Little, the Scotch Milkmaid. James Boswell (the biographer of Samuel Johnson) was also a subscriber.
L. Tom Perry Special Collections has recently acquired a copy of Little’s Poetical Works – one of only 800 copies printed. Little’s poetry interests scholars not only because of its association to Robert Burns, but as an example of Scottish vernacular and working-class literature.
September 7, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
This September, Special Collections presents “Two Hundred Years of a Literary Life,” a small exhibit honoring Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who was born September 29, 1810. Gaskell’s novels and stories of class struggles and women’s experience in mid-nineteenth century England have seen a surge in popularity over the past two decades. A number of her works have appeared on the small screen (her novels North and South, Wives and Daughters, and most recently, Cranford have been adapted by the BBC). The exhibit highlights Gaskell’s life and works and includes many of her better-known and lesser-known writings. It will be on display in Special Collections’ reference area throughout the month of September during normal operating hours. This exhibit was curated by L. Tom Perry Special Collections Rare Book intern Tracey Lang.
August 19, 2010 by Kristi Young
The exhibition Literary Worlds: Illumination of the Mind is now open in Perry Special Collections. The exhibition looks at the creative process involved in the craft of writing from the idea to the published work. Manuscripts, correspondence, notes, first editions and a variety of other items are featured. Authors from the Victorian era to modern times are highlighted including Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Orson F. Whitney, Orson Scott Card, Zane Grey, Leslie Norris and Jessica Day George.
The hours are Monday-Thursday: 8-9:00, Friday 8-6:00 and Saturday 10-6:00. Catalogs are available for a small price. For more information see lib.byu.edu/exhibit/literaryworlds or contact Kristi Young, curator, at 801-422-6041. The exhibition will run through June 2011.
July 29, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
Recent additions to Special Collections’ Victorian and Edwardian Literature Collections include works by Alice Meynell and May Sinclair, two women writers whose careers spanned the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.
Alice Meynell (1847-1922) began her career as a poet. She was also an essayist and literary critic. After her marriage, she assisted her husband in editing several periodicals, for which she wrote many of her essays. In her last years, Meynell took up poetry again. The Shepherdess (1914) collects some of these later poems. Special Collections’ copy of this book is a presentation copy from Meynell, dated November 1914.
May Sinclair (1863-1946) began her writing career with the intent to be a poet and philosopher. However, she quickly made her mark as a novelist, particularly a novelist who wrote insightfully and frankly about women’s experiences. Sinclair’s interest in feminism and in the field of psychoanalysis contributed to the narratives of her novels. The Dark Night (1924) is a novel in verse, which was issued in both a limited run of 350 copies and a commercial run. Special Collections’ copy is from the limited edition and is signed by the author.
July 12, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
In 1876, the centennial of the birth of the United States of America, Louisa M. Alcott issued a short story collection entitled Silver Pitchers, and Independence: a Centennial Love Story. The nine stories include “Transcendental Wild Oats,” a satirical portrayal of the unsuccessful utopian community Louisa’s father founded when she was a girl. The two stories from which the collection’s title is taken both revolve around a “declaration of independence” made by the main characters. In “Silver Pitchers,” three popular young ladies take a stand against alcohol, a decision which is initially derided by their peers. Over the course of a year, the girls’ examples persuade their friends, relatives, and sweethearts to free themselves from the influence of alcohol. In “Independence,” U.S. centennial celebrations form the backdrop for the story of John and Dolly, two young lovers who are struggling to choose their own life paths despite the expectations of family members. John rejects an inheritance which was gained immorally; Dolly resists her aunt’s plans to arrange her marriage to a rich, older man. They decide to be true to themselves and marry in poverty instead of being enslaved by money and society.
June 15, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
A favorite book of visitors to L. Tom Perry Special Collections is a first edition copy of Jane Austen’s last novel, Emma. Austen began writing Emma in January of 1814 and finished the novel in March of the following year. Emma was published anonymously, as were Austen’s other novels, but knowledge of her identity was an open secret among aristocratic circles. Among her admirers was the Prince Regent, to whom the first edition of Emma was dedicated by request. Austen contracted to have Emma issued by London publisher John Murray. Murray printed 2,000 copies — a large print run for a novel in the Regency period, when the work of lesser-known novelists like Austen were published in editions of 750 on average. Emma was published in a system known as “publishing on commission,” whereby the author assumed the financial risk for the book. The publisher initially paid for the production of the book, but charged the author for the production costs plus a 10 percent commission for each copy sold. If the book sold enough copies to recoup these costs, the author would earn a profit; otherwise, the author had to pay the publisher to make up the difference. The first edition of Emma did not sell out (even four years after its first appearance, fewer than 1,500 copies had been sold). Because Austen died a year and a half after Emma was published, she earned less than 40 pounds from the novel during her lifetime.
Special Collections does not actively collect early nineteenth-century literature, apart from the Edward M. Rowe Collection of William Wordsworth, but it does own a large body of material by Austen’s contemporaries, including Sir Walter Scott and the Romantic poets.
May 26, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
The newest acquisition to BYU’s Edwardian Literature Collection is a first edition of the famous children’s book The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. This purchase was made with the generous support of the Friends of the Harold B. Lee Library. The first edition (1908) joins a copy of the famous 1940 edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham, which is also held by Special Collections.
The Wind in the Willows is said to have been developed out of bedtime stories that Kenneth Grahame told his four-year-old son Alistair. In 1907, Grahame included versions of the adventures of Toad in a series of letters he wrote to Alistair. The manuscript of Grahame’s book was rejected by several publishers, but once in print, it rapidly became popular. Theodore Roosevelt was a fan of Grahame’s work and was influential in getting The Wind in the Willows published in the United States.
Grahame biographer Peter Hunt notes that while The Wind in the Willows is “one of the most famous books in the English language, and it can be seriously argued that it is not a children’s book at all. Despite the presence of Rat, Toad, Mole, and Badger as central characters, it can be read as an account of threat of social change and the destruction of rural England, and of the response of a generation” (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004). This complexity is perhaps one reason why the book remains popular with both children and adults a century after it was first published.
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Special Collections has recently added a number of penny dreadfuls to its Victorian Collection. The term “penny dreadful” refers to a genre of popular fiction which had its heyday in mid- to late-Victorian Britain. Penny dreadfuls were cheaply-produced, often second-rate novels issued in parts, which were consumed by working-class readers. Each part usually cost a penny. The earliest of these novels tended to be gory “shockers,” including gothic fiction and tales of true crime. Later in the Victorian period, publishers issued suspense novels, including adventure stories aimed at teenage boys, although the penny dreadful genre also encompassed romance and historical novels. Penny dreadfuls are quite scarce today, because they were printed on cheap paper and often were handled by multiple readers (people would pool money together to purchase the penny parts).
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