Dead People's Hair

I recently had the pleasure of spending my birthday with some of my favorite literary and historical icons, fulfilling my answer to the perennial cocktail party question, "If you could have dinner with any figures from history, who would they be?" I didn't have dinner with them, but I spent an entire afternoon as close to the living version of these people as possible while at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. I looked forward to this visit for days, dressing up for it a bit so that I would look respectable in the company of other scholars, as well as the ghosts of famous writers that I am certain haunt the second floor archives. I went so far as to wear shoes I knew were not the best all weather foot wear, but looking like a smarty with a purpose means the occasional sacrifice of fashion over comfort. After filling out the appropriate paperwork and orientation to get a research account, I requested the famous "Collection of Hair formed by J.H. Leigh Hunt," otherwise known as "the hair book," filled with locks of hair of major historical and literary figures. Many specimens were acquired through a hair dresser or clipped just after death.

Some were beautiful, clean and romantic (John Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.) Others gave me a feeling of a hair lodged in my throat after unknowingly being swallowed with my food. I still can't look at the online sample of Thomas Carlyle's hair without hacking a little. Despite this, I gave respectable time to each lock of hair because it was as close to interacting with George Washington or Napolean as we can have two hundred years after their deaths.

As wonderful as it was to see these other samples, I wanted to see the book specifically for Mary Shelley's Hair. She is a critical figure in both literary and pop culture history, creating an icon that lives large and beyond her story. Moreover, she did it as a challenge to egotistical men (including her husband) that foolishly dismissed her as a teenage girl in love. Her lock of hair was also one of the first things I ever saw on display at the Ransom Center when I was an undergraduate, one of the first things that let me know how special this collection and my university were for acquiring such a thing. This hair was on her head as she trudged, pregnant and on foot, through Europe with her poet husband who's head was lost in the clouds. This hair was on her head, on that dark and stormy night, when the monster in her head came alive on the page. It was a part of her, and it waits between the pages of this book for anyone who wants to touch history.

Alice in Wonderland Exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center!!!

Only a few posts ago I was touting the spectacular collection and exhibit schedule of the Harry Ransom Center, the primary research facility for the Humanities at the University of Texas. Once again, I am thrilled to post preview information about their upcoming Alice in Wonderland exhibit! The Ransom Center owns several original photographs, letters and manuscripts from Lewis Carroll, as well as lots of items specific to Alice in Wonderland.

They have an original first edition that is one of the world's few "hospital copies." Here is the story according the website...

In June 1865, Lewis Carroll had fifty copies of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland bound up for presentation to family and friends. Shortly afterward the illustrator, John Tenniel, complained to Carroll that he was "entirely dissatisfied with the printing of the pictures." The author gave in to Tenniel’s request that the issue be suppressed. Carroll then attempted to recover the presentation copies, promising to replace them. All but perhaps fifteen copies were returned to Carroll, who then removed the presentation inscriptions and donated the books to children’s hospitals.

The cover and inside title page of the Harry Ransom Center's "hospital copy" First Edition.

The Ransom Center also owns a rare first edition Russian copy that was translated by a young Vladimir Nabokov, who was paid a whopping $5 for his trouble.

For more information, here is a video of the upcoming exhibit. I hope you can make it! Please share this post and spread the word on this wonderful exhibit!

A Lock of Poe's Hair

There are so many ideas I have for posts, but I thought "What would be most festive just before Thanksgiving?" After much thought, I decided that Poe was really the way to go before getting the family together for a big meal and football. After all, he lived in New England, which is where the pilgrims landed, so it's a perfect fit!

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I've moved back to the Austin area so that I have easy access to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, one of the best Humanities collections in the world. I wandered around the exhibits between classes when I was a student, amazed that at any time I could pop over and see everything from photographs by the glorious Julia Margaret Cameron to an original Gutenberg Bible. It was like having tangible access to history. I still check the exhibit schedule every few months and I am convinced that my son shares my gothic sensibility because I went to see a Poe exhibit there when I was 24 hours pregnant with him. Poe is just powerful enough to work his way into genetics through osmosis.

The Poe collection at the Harry Ransom Center is full of letters, manuscripts, and personal effects...really personal. Like a lock of his oily, creepy hair. It's fantastic! Here are a few other things you can see next time they haul out all their bits and pieces of Poe...

Poe's writing desk

Detail from their original manuscript for "The Raven." 

Poe portrait by Arthur Garfield Learned - Image includes reference to "The Raven" and "Annabelle Lee," as well as the demons that haunted him.

The lock of Poe's hair.