L-165. Literary Manuscripts - Advance Reading List

Open All
/
Close All

  • Required Reading/Viewing

    “ACRL Code of Ethics for Special Collections Librarians,” June 19, 2020. Available online.

     

    Basbanes, Nicholas. “Instant Ivy,” in A Gentle Madness, Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books. (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), pp. 312–354.

     

    Cusk, Rachel. “The Weather of Domestic Life,” Ransom Center Magazine, Spring 2019, pp. 4–5. Available online.

     

    Douglas, Jennifer. “Archives as Texts and the Stories they Tell,” in Cultural Heritage and the Literary Archive: Objects, Institutions, and Practices Between the Analogue and the Digital, ed. by Tim Sommer. (New York: Routledge, 2025), pp. 168–187.

     

    Ishiguro, Kazuo. “How I Write,” 2014. Kazuo Ishiguro Papers 1.0, Harry Ransom Center.

     

    Larkin, Philip. “Operation Manuscript,” in Poetry in the Making: Catalogue of an Exhibition of Poetry Manuscripts in the British Museum, by Jenny Lewis. (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1967), pp. 14–21.

     

    “Ethical Stewardship: Where does a collection belong? Who decides?” Ethical Challenges in Cultural Stewardship: The Thirteenth Biennial Flair Symposium, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin, April 4–6, 2016. Available online, 1 hour and 33 minutes.

     

    Winterkorn, Joan. “Collecting and Preserving Contemporary and Historic Archives,” Sandars Lectures 2025: What Will Survive of Us, Cambridge University Library, November 11, 2025. Available online, 1 hour and 1 minute.

  • Supplemental reading/viewing

    Balint, Benjamin. Kafka’s Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy. New York: Norton, 2018.

     

    Enniss, Stephen. “‘Casting and Gathering’: Libraries, Archives, and the Modern Writer,” in The Meaning of the Library: A Cultural History, ed. by Alice Crawford. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 223–235.

     

    Gekoski, Rick. Guarded by Dragons: Encounters with Rare Books and Rare People.  London: Constable, 2021.

     

    Gekoski, Rick. Lost, Stolen or Shredded.  London: Profile Books, 2013.

     

    Gioia, Dana. “The Hand of the Poet: The Magical Value of Manuscripts,” The Hudson Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 9–29.

     

    Hamilton, Ian. Keepers of the Flame: Literary Estates and the Rise of Biography. London: Faber and Faber, 1992.

     

    Reid, B. L. The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

     

    Sommer, Tim. Cultural Heritage and the Literary Archive: Objects, Institutions, and Practices Between the Analogue and the Digital. (New York: Routledge, 2025).

     

    Winterkorn, Joan. “A Jigsaw with No Edge Piece,” Sandars Lectures 2025: What Will Survive of Us, Cambridge University Library, November 12, 2025. Available online, 58 minutes.

  • Just for Fun: The Literary Manuscript in Fiction

    Alvarez, Julia. The Cemetery of Untold Stories, 2024

    Byatt, A. S. Possession, 1991.

    Friel, Brien, Give Me Your Answer, Do, 1997.

    James, Henry. The Aspern Papers, 1888.

    McEwan, Ian. What We Can Know, 2025.

    Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Purloined Letter,” 1844.

    Stoppard, Tom. Indian Ink, 1995.