Fernando Zobel de Ayala

In this highly entertaining essay (HLB 9.1, Winter 1955), Fernando Zobel de Ayala describes an 18th century manuscript held by Houghton Library that testifies to “one of the most grotesque chapters in the history of calligraphy.” On February 3, 1758, a newspaper in Madrid printed a notice by an anonymous figure, who announced he possessed singular skill and talent at calligraphy, and penmanship “so neat and accurate as to cause the copy to be mistaken for the original.” He then challenged anyone in Europe to best him.

... Read more about A Calligraphic Duel

Katharine Olson

The Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art was established by Harvard alumnus Melvin R. Seiden in honor of Philip Hofer, also a Harvard graduate, and founder of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts at Houghton Library and secretary of the Fogg Art Museum.... Read more about The 2002 Philip Hofer Prize for Book and Art Collecting

Michael Crichton

Based on a 1991 address given by novelist Michael Crichton (1942–2008) at the Meeting of the Overseers’ Committee to Visit the Harvard Library, this conversational essay (HLB New Series 3.1, Spring 1992) is at once an autobiographical sketch of how technology impacted his experiences and workflows as a writer; a survey of recent and new technologies available to researchers; and a prediction of how libraries would have to cope with the surge of information made possible by computing and electronic storage. During his long career, Crichton wrote a great many...

Harriet Ritvo

In this article (published in HLB 33.3, Summer 1985), Harriet Ritvo writes that prior to the seventeenth century, people’s understanding of animals was highly symbolic and constructed largely through their imaginations... Read more about Animal Pleasures: Popular Zoology in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England