Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Punctator's World: A Discursion, Part X, Gwen G. Robinson

The Courier

TEXTBOOKS for budding journalists are recommending short sentences of fifteen to twenty words and vertical lists for 'a clear layout' of difficult materials. They instruct that to be successful, authors need not embellish every sentence with a verb, nor, in fact, worry very much about 'grammar'. Language should be pitched to suit the sophistication levels of the reading masses, of whom there are an estimated seventy-seven million incompetents lurking in the U.K. and the U.S. alone. Such are the guiding directives for practising writers, and by extension, for editors, publishers, and book sellers, all of whom are scrambling to accommodate …

A Charles Jackson Diptych, John W. Crowley

The Courier

IT IS NOT widely known that Charles Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend (1944), once attended Syracuse University. Although the official records for 1922-23 survive only on microfIlm so faint as to be nearly indecipherable, it may still be discerned that he enrolled for six courses in the newly opened College of Business Administration: Business English, Stenography, Journalism, French, Political Science, and Economics. Jackson dropped out after two semesters, however, and he never did finish college. Why he left Syracuse is unclear; but a story based on Jackson's freshman year became a twice-told tale, providing both the plot ofhis unpublished …

The Punctator's World: A Discursion (Part Nine), Gwen G. Robinson

The Courier

In the writing ofauthors Henryjames, Robert Louis Stevenson, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, james joyce, E. E. Cummings, Ezra Pound, George Orwell, and Ernest Hemingway, Robinson traces the development in the twentieth century of two rival styles, one "plaindealing" and the other"complected." In the "literary skirmish" between the two, the latter may be losing-perhaps at the expense of our reasoning powers.

The Punctator's World: A Discursion (Part Five), Gwen G. Robinson

The Courier

This, the fifth in a series on the history and ambitions of punctuation, describes the first vigorous manifestation of logical pointing. In an enlightened atmosphere of book reading and language consciousness, it was discerned that the shapes of sentences and their working parts were better delineated when punctuated syntactically.

The Punctator's World: A Discursion (Part Four), Gwen G. Robinson

The Courier

This, the fourth in a series of essays on the history of punctuation, deals with Renaissance and Jacobean England, a period of intense experiment both in language and in the bookmaking arts. Printing, now fully in action, governed the public perception of what looked best on the page and how text should be pointed and spelled. Special attention is given to authors such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

Stephen Crane's Father And The Holiness Movement, Christopher Benfey

The Courier

Stephen Crane was the son and grandson of prominent Methodist ministers, and it is often assumed that his colorful life of excess and adventure was an understandable rejection of that legacy. But his father's prominence during Crane's childhood was tinged with something close to scandal, and what the son rejected is not entirely clear. Indeed, Crane the novelist seems to have inherited certain traits of character from Crane the minister-tenacity of purpose, intellectual integrity, iconoclastic fearlessness-and adapted them to his own ends.

This article attempts to answer the question: Why did Stephen Crane's father, Jonathan Townley Crane (1819-1880), give up …

Edward Fitzgerald And Bernard Barton: An Unsparing Friendship, Jeffrey P. Martin

The Courier

This article details the correspodence between the "Quaker poet" Bernard Barton and famous literary figures of his era, especially his friend and fellow writer Edward FitzGerald. The source of the article is the Alfred McKinley Terhune Collection, found in Syracuse University's Special Collections. Barton's letters, which are often lively and full of fresh opinion, are (thankfully) still valued today, both for the subjects they deal with and for the people they address. As one critic has stated, "Barton never considered his own letters as literary productions. Rather he felt that his poetry was his sole claim to literary fame." It …

"Interviewing" Mr. Larkin, Robert Phillips

The Courier

This article provides some details about the life of the English poet Philip Larkin. This enigmatic man wrote some of the best poetry in the English language of the twentieth century. His work had a lasting effect upon readers. After that of Sir John Betjeman, Larkin's verse was probably the best-loved of any contemporary poetry in the United Kingdom.

The Punctator's World: A Discursion, Gwen G. Robinson

The Courier

"The Punctator's World: A Discursion" is a study, in several parts, of the origins of punctuation and its development to the present day. Part One, herewith, follows the subject from its murky beginnings into the broad daylight of classical usage.

The Forgotten Brother: Francis William Newman, Victorian Modernist, Kathleen Manwaring

The Courier

This article details the life and contributions to literature of the Victorian Era writer Francis William Newman. The article provides insight into his liberal views regarding abolition, women's rights, diet, and nationalization, as well as the tensions and creative differences with his famous brother and Cardinal, John Henry Newman.

The Joseph Conrad Collection At Syracuse University, J. H. Stape

The Courier

This article details the Joseph Conrad Collection in the Syracuse University Special Collections. Diverse in origin, Syracuse University's collection of Conradiana, housed in the George Arents Research Library, has more printed than manuscript materials.

My First Book—Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

The Courier

This article (after a brief introduction by Mark F. Weimer of Syracuse University) first appeared in McClure's Magazine in 1894. It is the now-rare preface to the classic novel Treasure Island, in which Robert Louis Stevenson comments on how the novel sprang from a map he painted with the assistance of an imaginative schoolboy while recuperating from an illness. A holograph manuscript of the preface is located in the Syracuse University Libraries.

Lady Chatterly's Lover: The Grove Press Publication Of The Unexpurgated Text, Raymond T. Caffrey

The Courier

This article details the excruciating process that author D. H. Lawrence went through to get his novel Lady Chatterly's Lover published in the United States. It was censored multiple times, cited as being obscene and offensive, while Lawrence and his lawyers tried to build the case that the novel possessed literary merit. The research used to write this article was based on findings in the Syracuse Univeristy Special Collections.

Thatckeray Facsimile Honors William P. Tolley, Syracuse University

The Courier

In 19080, Library Associates completed a project to honor William P. Tolley, the man who instigated its founding and remained actively concerned with Library Associates' well-being for many years afterward. As an expression of admiration and affection, Library Associates published a facsimile edition of an illustrated manuscript from the Syracuse University Special Collections, titled The Heroic Adventures of M. Boudin, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Cruikshank's Fagin—The Illustrator As Creator, Sidney Wechter

The Courier

"I am the originator of Oliver Twist." So claimed George Cruikshank in a pamphlet he had published, entitled "The Artist and the Author," in 1872. Cruikshank waited until two years after Dickens's death before putting forth his claim. He also wrote that he was the originator of Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter, The Tower of London, and other books by Ainsworth.

It has been proven beyond doubt that all these assertions are without foundation. We have learned that, starting with his first book, Sketches by Boz, for which Cruikshank did the illustrations, it was Dickens's policy first, to write a …

John Cowper Powys: The Autobiography And The Man, Walter Eden

The Courier

John Cowper Powys has become an important subject of critical and scholarly attention. Many of his works have been reissued, and dissertations, essays, and books are devoted to him. Still, one suspects that outside the ranks of specialists in twentieth-century British literature, Powys remains little known. This is particularly unfortunate because he hoped that his work would speak, not to academic specialists, but to a broad general audience.

As Powys's reputation continues to grow, literary scholars will become increasingly aware of the collection of Powysiana in the George Arents Research Library for Special Collections at Syracuse University. It is one …

The A.E. Coppard Papers At Syracuse, Arsiné Schmavonian

The Courier

Some of the most choice collections in the Manuscript Department of Syracuse University Libraries are also among the most modest in extent. The papers of English author and poet A.E. Coppard fit into both categories. Housed comfortably in a single box, fifty-five letters, three short stories in holograph and one speech provide a close look at Coppard's literary theories, criticism, opinions of his own work and that of a few others, reaction to approaches regarding dramatizing, filming or televising his prose works, dealings with publishers, and his activities on behalf of world peace through the Authors' World Peace Appeal in …

Preliminary Calendar Of The Nevil Shute Norway Manuscripts Microfilm, Howard L. Applegate

The Courier

In 1971 Syracuse University Library made an agreement with the National Library of Australia, whereby the National Library microfilmed the complete manuscript collection of Nevil Shute Norway's papers in its possession and sent the microfilm to the Arents Library of Syracuse University. Syracuse makes this film available to responsible scholars with the understanding that users of the microfilm will cite the National Library of Australia as the repository owning the original manuscripts and will make all references to the numbering identification system prepared by the National Library.

In Search Of Nevil Shute, Julian Smith

The Courier

Because it contains much unpublished autobiographical material and early or variant drafts of his published fiction, the Nevil Shute Norway manuscript collection on microfilm at Syracuse University offers an unusually fine chance to study in depth a popular writer who brought pleasure to millions of readers through a career spanning three decades.

The essence of "Nevil Shute" is found most properly through his novels, not his life; therefore, the major emphasis here is on his fiction. But as his fiction grew out of his experiences and interests in a way not common among popular writers, a brief guide to his …

The Folio Society: Handsome Books At Minimal Cost, Susan Rainey

The Courier

In 1969 the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse University acquired the personal archives of Charles Ede, founder and designer of the Folio Society of England. The archives include all the books published by the Society between 1947 and 1967, a complete run of the periodical The Folio and some manuscript material. The Folio Society was founded in 1947 to produce well-designed editions of classic texts at minimal cost. Its beginnings in post-war austerity determined its continued production of handsome but not over elaborate books. As the founder of the Society said, "The real challenge, we felt, was to equate …