The Red Network

Elizabeth Dilling - The Red Network: A "Who's Who" and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots (1934)

Archive.org link

A directory of early 30s political groups that's a fascinating time capsule of that era - though many of the attitudes and beliefs are just as prevalent now.  I originally thought this was a guide for radicals and thought that was pretty nice (the Chicago location made sense) but started to read and it's actually an anti-communist guide against radicals, complete with attacks on Gandhi, Einstein, Jane Addams, pacifists and of course the New Deal.

The real basis of the book is the directory, listing a few hundred different groups with what appears to be solid information about them.  Some of the conclusions, though, are a different story.  It's no surprise to see the ACLU or IWW here but the American Association for Old Age Security?  Apparently it has the "immediate objectives of the Socialist program".  Harlem Progressive Youth Club?  "Communist club".  Finnish Cultural Federation?  "Communist".  Committees for Human Rights Against Naziism?  Well, I don't quite follow their reasoning but it appears to be that while trying to save Jews in Germany the group isn't also protesting against Russia.  NAACP?  Communist infiltrated (and there's a direct slam against James Weldon Johnson).  Bahai?  Pacifists and the authors claim they aid communists.

Yep, the author was finding communists everywhere.  The book ends with a directory of people, in case you want to look up names.

The Fools of Shakespeare

Frederick Warde - The Fools of Shakespeare: An Interpretation of Their Wit, Wisdom and Personalities (1913)

Archive.org direct link 
Open Library main page

A brisk look at Shakespeare's fools (in the plays six pretty clearly presented as such then Warde adds others who serve a similar function such as Hamlet's grave diggers).  It starts with a quick historical overview of fools, so quick and from so few sources that it's not very reliable but does give an idea of what the actors were likely thinking.  Then each chapter gets into the specific character with description of their parts and an analysis.

Frederick Warde (1851-1934) was a British actor with a special interest in Shakespeare who found more fame in the US performing around the country.  One writer Alan Woods described him (in 1977) as "an old-fashioned, ranting performer".  Warde claimed that at an 1875 performance of David Copperfield he was so overcome with emotion that he began sobbing and had to halt peforming.  (Thomas P. Collins' Arizona on Stage p78)  Warde was friends with the Barrymores and Douglas Fairbanks Jr (who made a point of meeting the older actor and gaining a small job that launched his career).  Willa Cather saw him perform in Henry IV in 1891.  He appeared in a few silent films including Richard III (1912) and King Lear (1916), the latter apparently using an optical dissolve to indicate the actor's transformation into Lear.  He published a memoir Fifty Years of Make-Believe in 1920.

The DMMmap - The Digitized Medieval Manuscripts map

The DMMmap - The Digitized Medieval Manuscripts map

Direct link

A resource to hundreds of libraries with free online medieval manuscripts - each one has a link to the site.  There are filters for names and locations.

Surrealist journals from Argentina, Chile and Spain

Direct link

In Spanish.  Like too many library digitization projects the interface is clumsy and there's no download (unless it's well hidden) but this is still some nice material.  Wonder if anybody's written a history of self- and alternative publishing from pamphlets, broadsides, pirated editions up to little magazines and then zines?

The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991

The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991

Archive.org link

I've just started dipping into this and so far it's pretty astonishing.  Niven was a high school teacher and record collector who made tapes of what are basically narrated histories of particular jazz musicians.  They're sometimes quite detailed - Ellington runs to 90 tapes with an additional 7 for sidemen.  (Which may sound odd to non-jazz people but I have some CD collections of only Ellington sidemen and it's great stuff.)  This is very much a fan's project, one reason that somebody like Bud Freeman gets more tapes than Charlie Parker - a longer career sure but still.  

The Titanotheres of Ancient Wyoming, Dakota, and Nebraska

Henry Fairfield Osborn - The Titanotheres of Ancient Wyoming, Dakota, and Nebraska (1929)


Archive.org direct link (volume 1)
Archive.org direct link (volume 2)
Open Library main page

Do we ever really leave behind a love of dinosaurs?  And yes titanopheres weren't actually dinosaurs but they were very large prehistoric animals so our inner 8-year-olds won't make a distinction.  This book is more technical than most of us will want but is nicely illustrated and even in a brief look shows how much work goes into this.

Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was an early figure in the development of paleontology - he named the Tyrannosaurus rex and the Velociraptor among others.  Some of his work apparently hasn't aged well since even his own biographer called him "a third-rate scientist".  He became president of the American Museum of Natural History.

More to come & Neglected Books blog

The blog hasn't gone anywhere - just a long break.  It will be back at the start of April at the latest (first two weeks of posts are ready to go).

The Neglected Books Page

In the meantime check out this blog which I think anybody coming here will like.  I had seen it years ago but didn't notice that it had grown so much since then.  He covers mostly fiction and at much greater length.  Plus most of this is fairly recent and still copyrighted so you'll have to hit libraries or used book dealers to read them.  (And I guess it's from doing my own blog that I consider things from the 1940s onward as "recent".)

He is already covering Dorothy Richardson who I had planned to post about as soon as I finished her first book.

There's a nice profile in The New Yorker.