The Marks in the Fields

Essays on the Uses of Manuscripts

Edited by Rodney G. Dennis

With Elizabeth A. Falsey

    In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Harvard's Houghton Library in 1992, Curator of Manuscripts Rodney Dennis asked a stellar cast of critics, historians, and curators to write on items selected from the library's rich trove of manuscripts, which ranges from the papyrus fragments and ostraca of Antiquity to the papers of such modern figures as Elizabeth Bishop and Leon Trotsky. The result was Marks in the Fields, an extraordinary collection of essays by the likes of Helen Vendler, Christopher Ricks, and Lawrence Buell, which, in Dennis's words, combine to highlight "the natural patterns" found in manuscripts of all times and places, patterns that "go on occurring, everywhere and forever astonishing the mind."

  • Cover: The Marks in the Fields

Rodney G. Dennis is the retired Curator of Manuscripts at Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library.

Elizabeth A. Falsey is Reader Services Librarian at Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library.