Houghton-Medieval Studies Lecture in Early Book History

William P. Stoneman (Houghton Library emeritus), ‘For Purposes of Investigation or Instruction’: The History of Collecting Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Harvard. Co-sponsored with the Houghton Library. This lecture is free and open to the public; please click here to register. The lecture will be followed by an opening reception for the exhibition Incipit: A History of Early Manuscripts at Harvard.

In building Harvard University’s collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, both private collectors and university librarians have played important roles. This lecture reviews some important acquisitions and reflects on changing collection development policies and some missed opportunities. It is also intended to function as an introduction to Incipit: A History of Early Manuscripts at Harvard and an extended example of provenance research, which will be the subject of the associated workshops.

William P. Stoneman was a college lecturer and private librarian before joining Harvard as the Librarian of Houghton Library. His research interests have coalesced around the role of private collections in building public libraries. He worked with Boston-area colleagues Jeffrey Hamburger, Lisa Fagin Davis, Anne-Marie Eze, and Nancy Netzer on the 2016 exhibition Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston-Area Collections. Now happily retired, his “A Reference Book for Scholars and Collectors: Eric Millar’s English Illuminated Manuscripts (1926–1928)” was a contribution to the volume The Pre-Modern Manuscript Trade and its Consequences, ca. 1890–1945, published earlier this year.