Excerpt from Dracula manuscript, Rosenbach Museum and Library
I share a birthday with this influential Irish author (who is also the subject of the Google Doodle today), so I thought I’d share this. The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia holds Stoker’s notes for his famous (and infamous) novel — I’m pretty sure it has to be the institution described at the very end of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian under another name.
“A Cat Tale”
[manuscript, 1880]
This manuscript, which plays on the word “cat” and includes the author’s illustrations, was based on the bedtime stories that Clemens improvised for his daughters. It was not published until 1959, when it was included in Concerning Cats: Two Tales by Mark Twain (San Francisco: The Book Club of California).
Edgar Allan Poe’s early manuscript containing quotations of lines from twelve of Shakespeare’s plays including King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest.
(Source: bookshavepores)
A manuscript page from Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.
Paul GAUGUIN.
http://bit.ly/9t9elo
Galileo GALILEI.
Autograph notes on the satellites of Jupiter, 14–25 January 1611
Purchased by J. P. Morgan, Jr. in 1928; MA 1064
http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=149
“On this scrap of paper (an unfolded envelope), Galileo recorded the positions of four satellites of Jupiter over a period of several nights. He had observed the moons with the aid of his newly constructed telescope and published his findings in his revolutionary book The Starry Messenger (1610). He then worked to define more precisely the periods of the orbits of the Jovian moons, setting up his telescope night after night and making notes such as these. In a radical departure from his university training, Galileo insisted that scientific theory be grounded in observation and physical evidence rather than reliance on ancient authority.”
Charles DARWIN. Cross writing (technique used for saving paper), 1828
My dear Fox
I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects: — my only reason for writing, is to remove a heavy weight from my mind, so now you must understand, what you will perceive before you come to the end of this; that I am writing merely for my own pleasure & not your’s. — I have been very idle since I left Cambridge in every possible way & amongst the rest in Entomology. I have however captured a few insects, about which I am much interested: My sister has made rough drawings of three of them…
Read the full article, “A Life Beyond Crime: The Papers of Nicolas Freeling,” on the Harry Ransom Center’s blog Cultural Compass.
Nicolas Freeling’s working draft fragments, notes and letters with Peter Zimmerman related to the work that came to be known as “Gadget.” 1971–1975.
A drawing by physicist Peter Zimmerman with his and Nicolas Freeling’s notes as part of research for “Gadget,” 1971–1975.
Nicolas Freeling’s 1983 memo with editorial notes relating to “No Part in Your Death” (1984).
A page from one of Nicolas Freeling’s journals, 1973–1975.
Notes and fragments for “Gadget” in a “Rough Bomb Book” journal, 1975.
Notes and fragments for “Gadget” in a “Rough Bomb Book” journal, 1975.
A page with a recipe from one of Nicolas Freeling’s journals. 1979.
Nicolas Freeling’s working draft of “The Back of the North Wind.” 1979.
A page with personal notes and jottings from one of Nicolas Freeling’s journals. 1979.
First draft of Roget’s Thesaurus
