Catalpa Shade

Update from the City Hospital: it's almost gone. No Mames....

Adventures in folk music #rarebooks and archives, with that old ballad hunter Vance Randolph. One of three John Lomax inscriptions I know off hand in the #uarklibraries #specialcollections. (at Mullins Library)

Minor Threat Came First. #universaltruth #bathroomart (at Nomads - Music Lounge)

In times like these....Well we've never had times like these. But we have been warned that it could happen. For instance, Upton Sinclair's 1935, frighteningly prescient It Can't Happen Here, which is suddenly a national bestseller again. Here is one of two first editions in the #UARK Libraries circulating collection. This is one as the original publishers cloth, along with some evidence that students have read it. I hope they can heed the message in the future. #itcanhappenhere #rarebooks #uptonsinclair

In this alarming, frightening time that seems ahistorical and surreal, I am trying to stay attuned to the privilege and pleasures I can still enjoy. For instance, reading a first edition Dos Passos while working the #UARK Libraries #specialcollections desk on a Saturday. #rarebooks #timeslikethese

Sorry, another #halloween #rarebooks post borrowed from my #uarklibraries FBI posting. #robertgraves #virginiawoolf #batweek Getting ready for Halloween? For an eerie treat, how about this rare edition of Mockbeggar Hall by Robert Graves? It was handmade by the Hogarth Press of London in 1924. Graves included several spooky-themed poems like “Hemlock,” “Full-Moon,” and “Witches” shown here. October 24-31 is also National Bat Week: http://www.savebats.org/bat-week/. #BatWeek Famed artist William Nicholson provided the Gothic cover showing a bat hanging from the storied old building for his new son-in-law’s book. Leonard and Virginia Woolf had established Hogarth Press in their home just a few years before in 1917. Mock Beggar Hall is one of several rare early publications from Hogarth Press in Special Collections, including first editions of works written by several prominent English authors collected by renowned Arkansas poet John Gould Fletcher, such as T.S. Eliot, Nancy Cunard, Edwin Muir, William Plomer, along with Virginia Woolf, including her 1921 book Monday or Tuesday, for which she personally did the binding. To learn more about the rare books and other frighteningly interesting resources in Special Collections, come say “boo” in room 130 in Mullins Library, or write us at [email protected].

From my #uarklibraries FBI post: Dare you try another rare treat to get into the Halloween spirit? This little, precious (and frightening) 1819 book, The Vampyre, is often cited as the beginning of the English fascination with vampire stories. Misattributed to Lord Byron, it was actually written by John William Polidori, Byron’s physician and friend, who also happened to attend the famous summer vacation that gave birth to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and other legendary horror tales. This first American edition of The Vampyre from the Libraries’ Special Collections includes a detailed bookseller’s note on the inside cover explaining the publisher’s mistake that credited Lord Byron as the author. http://library.uark.edu/record=b1507620~S4 #rarebooks #misattributed #specialcollections #vampire

A persistent, new, largely unwelcome fascination: the handmade Hogarth Press books in #uarklibraries Special Collections. (Let's not speak of the ones in circulation....) The Graves is coming to social media Halloween post near you very soon. #rarebooks #hogarthpress #virginiawoolf #notafraidofvirginiawoolf

Needing a bit of a pick me up this afternoon, Fletcher's library can through again. A signed private printing of Yeats' A Vision from 1925. #uarklibraries #Special Collections #rarebooks

Manicules! Our 1530 Plinii the Elder is chock full of them, as well as Latin and Greek marginalia, regrettably chopped in some places from an aggressive historical rebinding. Love bringing this one out for the classes. #rarebooks #specialcollections #manicule #UARK #plinii

That time when T.S. Eliot remembered to ask his friend from Arkansas if he could indeed publish that piece about little ole Emma Dusenbury from Mena in The Criterion. From the John Gould Fletcher Papers in the #UARK #Libraries #specialcollections. #tseliot #ozarksinger

Scrapbook documenting the 1930s Ozark Mountain Crafts folk arts center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, including the WPA- built log cabin on Vandeventer a few blocks from #UARK campus, not too mention "Dad" Lily and his homemade fiddle. And that homespun cover fabric! From the Dwight Moore Papers (MC593) in Special Collections. The scrapbook comes from the early folklore work of his first wife, Elizabeth French Moore. #fayetteville #arkansas #OzarkMountainCrafts #folkart #ozarks #archives

Two more first edition works of fiction from the #UARK Libraries circulating collection, Twain's Old Times on the Mississippi (1876) and Longfellow's New-England Tragedies (1868). The Twain has some interesting provenance in that it was a 1961 donation by legendary Ozarks folklore collector and booster, Otto Ernest Rayburn, whose archives and voluminous folk encyclopedia manuscripts are in special collections. #rarebooks #specialcollections #marktwain #longfellow

High top fade and some explication on the way to the #TunnelBar in ##Northampton

High top fade and some explication on the way to the #TunnelBar in ##Northampton