Featured Book: Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings

This gorgeous and gorgeously produced volume entitled Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings is a collection of facsimile reproductions of manuscript items from the Emily Dickinson collections at the Amherst College Library Archives & Special Collections.  They comprise her jottings on envelopes or scraps of envelopes, and are almost all in pencil.  She apparently found a small stub of pencil (the image of one is included in the facsimile reproductions in the book) so easily tucked into a pocket as to be handy at any moment when words came to her.

Each scrap is reproduced photographically as well as transcribed.  One of my favorites is on a tiny scrap: "One note from One Bird Is better than a million words"

Featured Book: The Great War

In honor of Veteran's Day today, I thought it would be fitting to feature a book that we recently received here at the library.

Joe Sacco has written a number of graphic novels set in war-torn areas.  His latest work, however, is unique.  Modeled after the great Bayeaux tapestry, The Great War is a graphic panorama, 24 feet long representation of the first day of World War I's Battle of the Somme.  From General Haig viewing the field on the far left to bodies being buried on the right, we see details from cooks preparing meals, men moving into trenches and rum rations being dispensed.

Included is a booklet with an author's note, an essay on the battle by historian Adam Hochschild and an annotation of the panorama written by Sacco.

Featured book: Critical Survey of Graphic Novels

CWRU offers many courses which involve the study of popular culture, and a common interest is comic books and graphic novels.  Salem Press recently published a multi-volume reference work entitled the Critical Survey of Graphic Novels, which the Kelvin Smith Library has purchased.  The two volumes featured here focus on heroes and superheroes, with individual entries for many such characters.  We hope to add the remaining volumes in the series soon!

The set is available in print at KSL as well as in an online version for members of the CWRU community.

Featured book: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Once again I'm featuring a recently added scholarly edition of the collected works of an author, this time the great English playwright Ben Jonson.  This set is a hallmark of scholarship, complete with editorial essays, notes on editions and texts and complete indexing.  The Kelvin Smith Library is fortunate to own a copy for anyone on campus who is interested in studying the works of Jonson.

Featured Book: British It-Narratives: 1750-1830

My featured title this time around is another brilliant collection from the fine folks at Pickering & Chatto publishers.  This time their editors have collected and published a set of 18th century British it-narratives in four volumes.

I first became aware of it-narratives when I spoke to CWRU's Christopher Flint last December, about his new book "The Appearance of Print in Eighteenth-Century Fiction."  In it, he describes some of these it-narratives, which have as their central characters personified inanimate objects such as coins, watches, or in one case, an atom.  These objects then have their own narrative point of view, oftentimes using their proximity to their human owner to provide intimate and often humorous observations.

Want to read the History and Adventures of a Lady's Slippers and Shoes?  Come check it out!

Featured book: Dying for Victorian Medicine

I'm highlighting this book purely because I know a few people who might be interested in the topic.  And because of the image on the cover.  So if you are interested in Victorian history, human dissection, medical history, or public health history, have a look at this book!  You can even preview the book online here.

Featured book: The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

I am delighted to announce the recent addition of this new edition of the complete works of Elizabeth Gaskell .

The library already owns all of her published works, of course, but this particular edition, like most scholarly editions, provides something more than just the text of her works.

Published by Pickering & Chatto and under the general editorship of Joanne Shattock, this set provides the text of Gaskell's novels, novellas, journalism and celebrated Life of Charlotte Bronte, but does so with full academic additions by way of scholarly introductions, comprehensive footnotes to the texts, bibliographies and appendices with additional materials such as illustrations from original printings. The journal Choice awarded the set with their highest distinction: a review grade of Essential, and listed it as an Outstanding title.

For anyone studying the works of Gaskell, this set represents the best possible text from which to work.