{"id":633,"date":"2010-09-29T14:59:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T18:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=633"},"modified":"2015-01-08T14:26:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T19:26:33","slug":"john-updikes-library-catalogued-and-available-for-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2010\/09\/29\/john-updikes-library-catalogued-and-available-for-use\/","title":{"rendered":"John Updike’s library cataloged and available for use"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The book portion of the John Updike Archive is now cataloged and available for research use.<\/p>\n

The 1,635 volumes establish Updike as his own greatest collector. For example, the collection includes roughly ninety editions and printings of Rabbit, Run, <\/em>including those in translation. Many of these volumes bear Updike\u2019s annotations, which not only correct typographical errors and emend the text, but also zero in on aesthetic discordances such as flattened margins and faded or ink-heavy printing. Nor was Updike always satisfied with a single round of corrections: in a 2004 printing of Pigeon Feathers<\/em>, he edits the 1961 story \u201cA&P\u201d for its inclusion in a new anthology. His changes rearrange the checkout aisles in the titular store.<\/p>\n

More extensive annotation, and an occasional window into Updike\u2019s own writing process, can be found in the volumes he reviewed and criticized. The manuscript text of the poem \u201cMass. Mental Health\u201d covers the rear endpaper of Updike\u2019s copy of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1913<\/em>; and in M. \"\"<\/a>Ageyev\u2019s Novel with Cocaine<\/em>, which Updike reviewed for the New Yorker<\/em> in 1986, there is a brief sketch of the plot and characters of S.<\/em>, published two years later.<\/p>\n

The collection ranges from mass-market paperbacks to letterpress broadsides, but several items are rarer still. A publisher\u2019s dummy for a book titled Travels of Frank Folly<\/em>, and illustrated by Warren Chappell, suggests a storybook for children or young adults, but the title was never published (see image, right). And to commemorate Updike\u2019s fiftieth book, the essay collection More Matter, <\/em>his longtime publisher A.A. Knopf produced a special edition of one, exclusively for the author. Laid inside the brown leather slipcase is a menu for the private luncheon at which the volume was presented (see images, above left and below left).<\/p>\n

The collection also includes the books on Updike\u2019s writing desk at the time of his death, those he needed close at hand while writing his last, unpublished novel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As a thorough catalog of Updike\u2019s published work, from Fawcett reprints of The Witches of Eastwick<\/em> to Swedish and Estonian translations of The Centaur, <\/em>the collection serves as a portrait both of the author\u2019s prolific career and of book publishing in the latter half of the twentieth century.\u00a0 Through the generosity of the John Updike Literary Trust and Knopf, the collection continues to grow with the addition of posthumous editions.<\/p>\n

All titles are included in HOLLIS, the Harvard online catalog, located at this link<\/a>. Under the \u2018Other call number\u2019 search type, search for AC95.Up174 to see all titles in the collection. For a direct link to the collection in HOLLIS, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post was contributed by Houghton Library Bibliographic Assistant Ryan Wheeler, who cataloged the books and other print materials in the John Updike Archive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Images, from top:\u00a0 More Matter<\/em>, *AC95.Up174M9.1999 (B); Travels of Frank Folly<\/em>, *AC95.Up174T2.1999; Luncheon menu, *AC95.Up174M9.1999 (B).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book portion of the John Updike Archive is now cataloged and available for research use. The 1,635 volumes establish Updike as his own greatest collector. For example, the collection includes roughly ninety editions and printings of Rabbit, Run, including those in translation. Many of these volumes bear Updike\u2019s annotations, which not only correct typographical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[64929],"tags":[3727,2827,13346,13000,872,2583,3728,64,4383],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-houghton-library","tag-20th-century","tag-american-lit","tag-association-copies","tag-book-collecting","tag-fiction","tag-harvard-alumni","tag-marginalia","tag-reading","tag-updike"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-ad","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5468,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/5468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}