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Posted by: Mark Manivong
Mary Renault (pseudonym of Eileen Mary Challans) was a British lesbian writer best known for her widely read historical-fiction novels set in ancient Greece.
Posted in: 20th Century, Classics, LGBTQIA+, Literature, Women in Book History
Posted by: Mark Manivong
Andrew Holleran (pseud.) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer and a significant contributor to post-Stonewall literature. He was a member of the Violet Quill, a group of gay writers who assembled in the early 1980s to critique each other’s work and to develop strategies to overcome corporate publishers’ reluctance to publish gay-themed novels. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division collects the works of the Violet Quill writers, including Andrew Holleran, and holds the first editions of their works in the Gene Berry and Jeffrey Campbell Collection.
Posted in: 20th Century, LGBTQIA+, Literature, Publishing
Posted by: Mark Manivong
Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1932 and observed first-hand the rise of the Nazis and the damage and terror inflicted on the famously tolerant city and its inhabitants. He drew from his journals that he kept from those years to write "Mr. Norris Changes Trains" (1935) and "Goodbye to Berlin" (1939), which would later be combined into an omnibus volume entitled "The Berlin Stories" (1945). Playful and powerful, Isherwood's depiction of Berlin captured the imagination of later artists, whose work is also represented in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Posted in: 20th Century, LGBTQIA+, Seasonal
Posted by: Mark Manivong
May Sarton (1912 –1995) was an important and prolific American author of poetry, literature, and journals. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division holds several of Sarton’s first editions in the Rare Book and Gene Berry and Jeffrey Campbell Collections.
Posted in: 20th Century, LGBTQIA+, Poetry, Women in Book History, Women's Stories
Posted by: Mark Manivong
Guy Davenport was an American writer, translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and professor. This blog post provides a short biography and some examples of his work found in his collection.
Posted in: 20th Century, Appalachia, Publishing
Posted by: Mark Manivong
This post explores the life and work of poet, teacher, and publisher Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett (1923-2020), particularly her creative output and influence on publishing African American poetry.
Posted in: 20th Century, African American Poetry, Poetry, Publishing
Posted by: Mark Manivong
George Schneeman was a poet and artist who collaborated with the Poetry Project at St. Mark's in New York City. This blog post provides a short biography and some examples of his work found in his archive.
Posted in: 20th Century, Poetry
Posted by: Mark Manivong
The Dim Gray Bar Press was founded by Barry Magid and produced a number of monographs, broadsides, and ephemera during its most active years. This blog post touches briefly on the history of the press and highlights some of the materials within the archive.
Posted in: 20th Century, Contemporary Book Arts
Posted by: Mark Manivong
James Merrill (1926-1995) was a poet and writer who won nearly every major poetry award in the United States. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division acquired a Merrill Collection in 2015 that holds a surprising number of his works bearing inscriptions to his romantic partners. This blog post looks at some of the inscriptions to four of Merrill's lovers.
Posted in: American History, Poetry