ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Acquisitions

Mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourels papershave been donated to the Twentieth Century Archives in the Department of Special Collections at Boston University. Tourel, who died in 1973, was known for her art song interpretations, particularly French and Russian songs. She performed with the Opéra Comique in Paris, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic under the direction o Arturo Toscanini. Tourel was a close friend of Leonard Bernstein.

Childrens books submitted for consideration for the Sugarman Children’s Book Award will be donated to George Washington University’s (GWU) Gelman’s Library. The biennial Sugarman Award is a regional award that recognizes quality children’s literature. The books will be housed in the children’s book section and used as a circulating resource for GWU students and area teachers.

The Renier Collection of 19th-Century English Crime Broadsides has been acquired by the Harvard Law School Library. Dating from 1812-1868, the 110 broadsides graphically describe murders and other sensational crimes of the period; most contain accounts of the executions and dying words of the accused. Many of the broadsides were printed by local printers for limited sale to the throngs of spectators who attended the executions of criminals. The Renier Collection contains many items for which no other copies are recorded. The broadsides, many bearing woodcuts and moralizing verse, supplement the Newgate Calendar and court reports of notorious crimes.

Victorian novelist George Gissings manuscripts, letters, and first editions contained in the Pforzheimer Collection have been acquired by the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Gissing is best known as the author of New Grub Street (1891), Charles Dickens, A Study (1898), and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecraft (1903).

Drama titles from the 16th-18th centurieswere given to Ohio State University (OSU) Libraries’ Rare Book and Manuscript Division. The collection of over 400 titles in 363 volumes contains nineteen 17th-century quartos of plays by Shakespeare; plays by other prominent dramatists of the period (Beaumont and Fletcher, Congreve, Crowne, Davenant, Dryden, Fielding, and Shirley); and contemporary source materials (Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577), the Douai-Rheims Bible (1582-1610), and Grafton’s Chronicle (1569)- The books were donated by the family of the late Stanley J. Kahrl of the OSU’s Department of English.

Papers of Thomas Affleck, a prominent19th-century agriculturalist and writer, have been donated by his descendant, W. J. “Jack” Bowen of Houston to the Sterling C. Evans Library at Texas A&M University. Affleck’s Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar is one of his best-known works. The Affleck Papers consists of letters, scientific writings, personal correspondence, photographs, and a scrapbook of news clippings, circulars, pamphlets, and other ephemera. They also contain the work of Mary Hunt Affleck, a prominent early Texas poet and literary figure.

The Harry Ransom Humanities ResearchCenter at the University of Texas at Austin has acquired the literary archive of British novelist and critic Christine Brooke-Rose (1926- ). Included in the collection are over 1,000 letters from friends and colleagues including Anthony Burgess, Umberto Eco, and Angus Wilson. The papers also contain autograph manuscripts, notebooks, pre-publication materials, and published editions of Brooke-Rose’s work. ■