Month 16 (October 2012)
This month I have been mostly... Planning and pinning
Full details of our next Butler Day, Adventures in Italy, are now up on the website. I’m looking forward to hearing Julia Powles (a graduate student at St John’s) talk about her recent trip to the Canton Ticino, where she used Butler’s Alps and Sanctuaries (1882) as her guidebook, and took copies of Butler’s annotated maps to help her retrace his footsteps through the mountains. We’ll also be welcoming practising painter Clarice Zdanski from Franklin College, Switzerland, and Cristiano Turbil from the University of Kent, to share their perspectives on Butler’s contributions to the history of art and to the Italian cultural debate.
Boys looking over Wall. Veroli. 1893 (Album 3/8/3)
The event will be a great opportunity to launch our Butler Map, which will give online access to a good selection of Butler’s photographs – many of which document his extensive travels in Italy (and indeed throughout Europe) in the 1880s and 1890s. You can now view 50 images on Historypin, and by Christmas you’ll be able to see another 50 and to compare Butler’s views with the photographs Julia took during her 2012 'Alps and Sanctuaries' expedition. The original, spectacular photograph albums from which these digital images have been copied will also be on display at the Butler Day.
Novara Market Place. 1892 (Album 2/46/3)
In my cataloguing work this month I’ve been going through the book collection, beginning with section II – editions of works by Samuel Butler. There are many (individual works, and different editions); Butler’s best-known books, the novels Erewhon (1872) and The Way of All Flesh (1903), are still in print today. You can get a sense of the range of his published works in our newest online exhibition, Samuel Butler’s Books – created with the help of undergraduate Maya Palit, who volunteered in the Library this summer. (Thank you, Maya!)
Men asleep in the Piazza S. Marco, Florence. 1892 (Album 2/35/6)