In 1964 the French publisher Gallimard brought out the first French translation of William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch under the title Le Festin Nu. Ironically, the book first appeared in Paris in its original English form in 1959, in the Olympia Press Traveller’s Companion series (see RBML‘s copy here). France traditionally had been a friendly […]
A New Medieval Manuscript, or rather, an old one in a new home
Good news here: we have just bought a new manuscript–newfor us, of course. And it has just been delivered today, our new baby. It’s a copy of Hugh of St. Cher’s Postils on the Apocalypse, dated 24 November 1468, and produced in the lower Rhineland, probably Cologne. It’s a beautiful book of 151 parchment leaves, […]
Medieval MSS in Action
Columbia students have the fortune this term to work actively with RBML’s medieval and renaissance manuscripts in two very different classes. Professor Christopher Baswell’s class, although termed "English vernacular paleography" in fact introduces his students to a vast array of issues pertinent to the study of manuscripts; he interprets the word "paleography" as we generally […]
Target Margin Theater
On Tuesday, February 16, Target Margin Theater presented readings and discussion of their new work-in-progress The Really Big Once here in Butler Library. This play explores the complex relationship between Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan in the period between 1948 and the early 1950s as they worked on the first production of Camino Real, Williams’s […]
Bomb The making of a Gregory Corso poem.
One of the great perks of working in the RBML is not merely being surrounded by the fabulous rare and unique books and manuscripts we care for, but also having colleagues who share their own discoveries. Today was just such a day: while conferring with Carrie Hintz, one of RBML’s manuscript processors, about our Beat […]