Part of the festivities celebrating the bicentenary of the death of Marquis de Sade is an exhibit at the L’ Institut des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris featuring the original manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom. Regarded by Sade as his magnum opus, The 120 Days of Sodom also known as The School of Libertinism, was written by Sade in the space of thirty-seven days in 1785 while imprisoned. The production, construction and preservation of the manuscript is itself an epic tale. Sade wrote for 3 hours each evening, copying his drafts on strips of paper 11" wide, he then glued them together to...
Kafka’s notebook, the first written evidence of Yiddish and more as Israel’s National Library opens up
13th-century German prayer book containing the earliest evidence of the Yiddish language. The goal is daunting: Undertake "a worldwide initiative to digitize every Hebrew manuscript in existence." To celebrate the project, the National Library of Israel is opening its vaults to give the world a peek and some of the jewels of their collection. The Associated Press was offered "a rare glimpse at its most prized treasures," some never before seen and others that has been locked away for years. The jewels include manuscripts by Sir Issac Newton and Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon and a Hebrew vocabuary notebook by Kafka, who took Hebrew lessons...
Thomas Hardy Stays At Home, Thanks To 104 Year Old Friend.
Norrie Woodhall has a new claim to fame when it comes to Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy. She's just provided the inspiration for a successful campaign to keep some valuable Hardy manuscripts in his native Dorset. At 104 years-of-age, Norrie might seem an unlikely muse for Dorset's die hard Hardy fans. But she's been connected with the writer since before she was born: Norrie Woodhall says her mother was the inspiration for Hardy's tragic heroine, Tess of the D'Urbervilles.Augusta Noreen "Norrie" Bugler Woodhall is one of the last people alive who actually knew Thomas Hardy. When she was but a lass...
Angels And Demons Reunited At Morgan Library
Hours of Catherine of Cleves, in LatinIlluminated by the Master of Catherine of ClevesThe Netherlands, Utrecht, ca. 1440(Images courtesy of Faksimile Verlag Luzern.) The first page of Catherine's prayer book foreshadows her troubled marriage. Her coat of arms as the Duchess of Guelder is centered beneath the Virgin Mary. Traditionally, her husband's crest would be illustrated atop her coat of arms. But Catherine defiantly places an Ox-- the symbol of The House of Cleves--above the emblem. Catherine is pictured praying from her Book of Hours at lower left. Her ancestors' coats of arms decorate the corners of the pages.It's every...
Morgan Library’s Christmas Gift: Display of Dickens’ Decisive Deletions
Charles Dickens' Manuscript On Display At The Morgan Library. (Photo By Angel Franco for The New York Times.)The Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan is offering modern readers a chance to see the creative process behind Victorian literature's most enduring holiday tale, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The library, housed in an Italian renaissance style palazzo in Murray Hill, holds the original manuscript of the story, written and rewritten in Dickens' own hand. According to Alison Leigh Cowan of The New York Times, the manuscript goes on display each year at the Morgan, but under glass, with only a single...