LILLY LIBRARY NEWS & NOTES

One of the many services the Lilly Library provides for researchers is that of “digitization on demand.” A recent successful and much appreciated example of this service was the digitization of the “Testamentaria,” a manuscript from the Lilly Philippine mss. II Collection.

Requested by Prof. Ted Bergman, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Modern & Classical Languages at California State University Fresno, Prof. Bergman noted in his request:

The ‘testamentaria’ of Charles Connelly, an Irishman from Crosswell (near Glinsk in County Galway), contains much information on financial communications between Ireland, Spain and the Philippines. In the late eighteenth century, Connelly served in Mexico and the Philippines, where he participated in the Sociedad Económica del País by planting cash crops in an effort to increase the Spanish Crown’s profits. Connelly’s estate was being settled at the height of the Spanish Enlightenment. The communications include several mentions of Fr. Thomas Connelly and Fr. Thomas Higgins, co-authors of the monumental Diccionario nuevo de las dos lenguas espanõla é inglesa (1797-1798) as well as transactions carried out through the merchant banking house of Patricio Joyes e Hijos. In addition, the document contains a copy of a letter from Charles Connelly’s family members in Ireland certified by Leandro Fernández de Moratín, which made its way into the record in Manila.

Other scholars, when notified by Dr. Bergman about the completed project, agreed that “it sounds like an incredibly rich source, particularly for people working within our network of scholars on Ireland and the Spanish and Spanish American world.”

In addition, Professor Bergman provided us with links to other organizations and researchers working in this area of studies who would find the manuscript a valuable resource:

http://www.irishinspain.org

http://www.irishinspain.org/participantes.html

– Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts

View more images from the Lilly Philippine mss. II Collection

The Lilly Library recently acquired an extraordinary new addition to our collection of military manuscript diaries. In a series of illustrated letters to his fiancée, Miss Elise Buckingham of Zanesville, Ohio, Lt. Mason Abercrombie Shufeldt documents his voyage on the U.S.S. Enterprise from Cape Henry, Virgina to Capetown, South Africa, from December 27, 1882 to March 31, 1883. Describing his travels and his devotion to his “far-off sweetheart” in depth, Shufeldt decorated each of the three volumes with an elaborately hand-drawn and colored cover with nautical themes and incorporated a series of hand-drawn maps and views throughout. Included in the archive is a small envelope dramatically labeled “The Lash.” Enclosed in the envelope is a letter from Miss Buckingham ending their engagement.

A son of Robert Wilson Shufeldt, an important naval officer who played a major role in opening trade with Korea and China in the early 1880’s, Mason Shufeldt served as an officer under his father’s command aboard the Ticonderoga during its around-the-world voyage in the late 1870’s and became deeply interested in the largely uncharted island of Madagascar during an extended stop there. After receiving news of the end of his engagement, Shufeldt received permission to explore the Madagascar interior, leading a team of men of which only 153 survived to reach the waters of Mozambique Channel. At least fifty are said to have “perished in the battles which he fought with the Sakolava slave-dealers” according to a New York Times article published October 8, 1884. Shufeldt died in Capetown in 1892 at the age of thirty-nine.

– Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts

View more images from The Broken-Hearted Sailor.

Electrical work may be more complicated, but for now its impact is still hidden. But paint! Now there is a visible taste of what the renovated Reading Room will look like! These two photographs from last week show the ceiling being transformed from dull green to crisp white and blue.

– Erika Dowell, Public Services Librarian

Boris Karloff (born William Henry Pratt on November 23, 1887 in Camberwell, London) was a 44-year-old journeyman actor when director James Whale, unable to convince Bela Lugosi to accept the role, cast the mild-mannered Englishman as “the Monster” in the 1931 Universal horror film, Frankenstein. The actor’s sensitive portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s creature made him an immediate star, but forever typecast him in increasingly low-budget horror and science fiction films from the 1930s to the late 1960s. In 1966, the veteran actor who had made some of the most notable genre films in the history of motion pictures (Bride of Frankenstein, 1935; The Body Snatcher, 1945) had been reduced to appearing in cheapie productions like The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, although that same year he had done the winning narration for the now-classic animated television production of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

In 1968, 29-year-old film critic turned director Peter Bogdanovich gave Karloff his last memorable screen role as aging horror movie star, “Byron Orlok,” in Targets. Bogdanovich’s directorial debut (which he also produced, co-wrote, and edited) was inspired by ex-Marine Charles Whitman’s deadly 96 minute rampage on the campus of University of Texas-Austin on August 1, 1966. Hours after murdering his mother and wife in separate incidents, Whitman amassed a small arsenal of high-powered rifles, and positioning himself atop the university’s Tower, killed 13, and wounded 31 before being shot to death by a campus security guard. In a more sedate scene from Targets featured on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfXOx04d6m4) , Bogdanovich (seated on couch) convinces Karloff to retell W. Somerset Maugham’s short piece, “Appointment in Samarra” (1933). Karloff died on February 2, 1969, but not before footage taken of him in late 1968 was added to four low-budget films shot in Mexico: Cult of the Dead, Alien Terror, House of Evil, and The Fear Chamber.

The Bogdanovich mss, purchased from the filmmaker in 1995 and periodically supplemented, is housed in the Auxiliary Library Facility (ALF). Materials must be requested in advance for use in the Lilly Library by using the Bogdanovich mss. collection description and inventory in conjunction with IUCAT. Among the collection’s more than 100,000 items are production materials, research, related business correspondence, and scripts for his films including Targets (1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), Directed by John Ford (1971), Paper Moon (1973), Daisy Miller (1974), Saint Jack (1979), Mask (1985), et al. Also included are reel-to-reel audiotapes of interviews conducted by Bogdanovich with directors George Cukor, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Otto Preminger, Raoul Walsh, and Orson Welles. The accompanying photos feature a unique item from the collection: a 3-pound hand painted fiberglass casting of Karloff’s bust by veteran Hollywood make-up man and F/X sculptor Norman Bryn commercially available through Classic Creature Craft, LLC.

– David K. Frasier, Reference Librarian

The Library’s temporary reading room, set up in the Elisabeth Ball Room, is running smoothly this week. This room is arranged to accommodate up to four readers, and we have had a full house at times. In the top photo you can see graduate student employee Trevor Winn silhouetted against the window and one researcher at a table. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of the Irish poet Thomas Moore surveys the scene from above the fireplace.

Library staff have also been displaced during the renovation. Head of Reference and Public Services Rebecca Cape is camped out in the Byrd Room (the Public Services staff room) since her office is accessed through the Reading Room, and all employees are using a different entrance to staff areas of the Lilly Library, passing through the Lilly Room (home to me and Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts) instead of the usual path through the Reading Room.

Renovation work kicked into high gear right away this first week of the project. Crews scrubbed the limestone window frames, removed carpet and padding, set up scaffolding, and started work on replacing light fixtures. In the bottom photo you can see holes in the ceiling where light fixtures have been removed. It is exciting to see things get moving so quickly!

– Erika Dowell, Public Services Librarian

The Lilly Library Reading Room looks pretty forlorn this week, but it is just the first step in a remodeling project that will take all summer to complete. The project includes new paint, carpeting, window coverings, and furniture, as well as new built-in shelving and workspace beneath the windows. New lighting will brighten the space, and new electrical outlets will make plugging in your laptop easier, with no nasty surge protectors sprouting from the room’s perimeter.

This week there are no reader services at the Lilly Library, but next week we will open up a temporary Reading Room in the Elisabeth Ball Room. (Check back for pictures next week.) Library staff have moved a lot of furniture this week. The Ball Room furniture had to be relocated to make room for the temporary Reading Room furniture, consisting of chairs and smaller tables from the original Reading Room. Most of the furniture in the picture is destined to leave the Lilly Library completely. Staff have also moved many, many books and card catalog cabinets and drawers. All are safe in their new temporary homes in several locations in the Lilly Library.

If you want to use the temporary Reading Room this summer, remember to make an appointment by emailing liblilly@indiana.edu or calling 812-855-2452. We will try to accommodate drop-in visitors, but those with appointments have first priority.

Keep an eye on this blog and the Lilly Library Facebook page for more pictures and information about the progress of the Reading Room renovation.

– Erika Dowell, Public Services Librarian

The Lilly Library has recently received two new works charmingly illustrated with remarkable depictions of military themes. The first, Odelette Guerrière (1870), by Catulle Mendès, is a small ode characterized by an erotic or jovial theme with a predominately descriptive narrative. The Lilly Library’s copy is unique because it is illustrated with 5 original water colors signed by French artist/illustrator Albert Bligny interspersed throughout the text. In addition, the luxurious volume was bound by Marius Michel in full red Morocco with gilt decorations, green silk and marbled end papers.

The second, a folio collection of 115 drawings and water colors by A. Rochet and R.P. Germain, depicts daily life on the home front in Dijon, France during the First World War (1914-1918).

– Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts

View additional images from Odelette Guerrière and the Rochet and Germain folio

Please join the Friends of the Lilly Library this afternoon for a talk by Gaylord Schanilec, “Wood: From Tree to Press.” The talk will begin at 4:00 p.m. with a reception to follow.

Gaylord Schanilec is a poet, wood engraver and printer living in rural Wisconsin. He is the proprieter of Midnight Paper Sales, www.midnightpapersales.com. His most recent project, Sylvae, as well as examples of earlier work will be on display for the talk.

Not every American regional writer is destined to become a Mark Twain, a William Faulkner, or even a modest success. Such is the case of Emmett Gowen (1902-1973), an obscure Tennessee-born writer who published two forgettable novels in the early 1930s with Indianapolis publisher Bobbs-Merrill. Court-martialed from the Marine Corps, Gowen served three years in the Naval Prison at Parris Island, South Carolina before being dishonorably discharged in 1923. He taught himself the craft of writing as a reporter on several Memphis newspapers while churning out stories for pulp magazines.

In 1932, Bobbs-Merrill published Gowen’s first novel, Mountain Born, a chronicle of the lives and loves of Tennessee hill folk, to mild critical acclaim, but lackluster sales. Undeterred, Gowen pressed on with the writing of a second novel contracted by the publisher, but ran into a problem faced by many would-be professional scribes — lack of money to complete their work. On October 29, 1932, Bobbs-Merrill received “Cards on the Table,” Emmett Gowen’s clever and artistic plea for a life-saving advance against royalties that would enable him to finish a racy novel on the trials and tribulations of Southern tenant farmers. The ploy worked. The amused publisher advanced Gowen $200.00, but their relationship ended after Dark Moon of March (1933) generated fewer sales than his first book. Gowen persevered, becoming a regular contributor of articles featuring rugged men in the “great outdoors” to magazines like Field and Stream, Argosy, True, and Outdoor Life. In the late 1950s, he assumed the presidency of Emmett Gowen, Ltd., an outfitting and guide service for hunters and fisherman vacationing in Mexico and Central America. His most successful book, The Joy of Fishing, was published by Rand McNally in 1961.

Gowen is among the several hundred authors (Irvin S. Cobb, Ring Lardner, James Whitcomb Riley) represented in the Bobbs-Merrill mss. (1885-1957) housed at the Lilly Library. The papers of the Indianapolis publisher are arranged by author and include autobiographical questionnaires, correspondence, reader’s opinions, promotional material, and royalty records. The 131,056 items in the collection have been partially described in “Studies in the Bobbs-Merrill Papers,” edited by Edwin H. Cady, in The Indiana University Bookman, no. 8 (March, 1967), pp. 1-166. A dissertation in 1975 by Jack O’Bar entitled A History of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1850-1940: With a Postlude Through the Early 1960’s (LZ2 .O124) was derived largely from the Bobbs-Merrill mss.

– David Frasier, Reference Librarian

View larger images of Gowen’s letter

The Lilly Library is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of the Dvořàk/Thurber mss., ca. 1885-1937, which consists of documents, correspondence and ephemera relating to Antonìn Dvořàk, Jeanette M. Thurber, and the history of the National Conservatory of Music in America (NCMA). These materials were a gift from Prof. Robert Aborn, whose dissertation “The Influence on American Musical Culture of Dvořàk’s Sojourn in America,” may be read in its entirety at: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/3462.

Jeanette M. Thurber founded the National Conservatory of Music in 1885, which was based on the Paris Conservatoire model. In addition to replicating the European Conservatories to which American students had been turning in order to obtain a first class musical education, she also hoped to train as yet untrained students, the handicapped, and blacks as well as to encourage an indigenous music culture in the United States. Initially tuition free, the Conservatory was originally located at 126-128 East 17th Street; however that building was demolished in 1911. Unsuccessful attempts to revive the school and relocate it in Washington DC persisted through the 1920’s. The staff included Victor Herbert, Rafael Joseffy and Henry Finch as well as the noted composer, Antonìn Dvořàk, who was the director from 1892-1895. It was at the Conservatory that Dvořàk met his pupil, Harry Burleigh, one of the earliest African-American composers. Burleigh introduced traditional American Spirituals to Dvořàk at the latter’s request.

Antonìn Leopold Dvořàk (September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of Romantic music. During his time in America, among other compositions, Dvořàk wrote Symphony No.9 “From the New World,” String Quartet in F (the “American”), and the String Quintet in E flat, as well as a Sonatina for violin and piano.

– Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts

Image: Jeanette M. Thurber (photo)

View a copy of letter (copy made by Mrs. Thurber) from Dvořàk to Littleton discussing his initial contract with the NCMA.