A Picture of Dorian Gray

An inscribed first edition

As the name suggests, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is, in large part, about a picture. But, the first two publications of the story were not illustrated. That is not too surprising. Any self-respecting illustrator would have to shy away from depicting the painting Wilde describes as it takes on Dorian Gray's many sins through life.

The first printing of the story

We have many editions of the book, but only one where the illustrator tried to capture the painting at the end of Gray's life. For those who have read the book, the illustration is entirely unsatisfying. It can't hold a candle to the horrors we imagine.

Lucille Corcos's 1957 illustration for the Limited Editions Club

More successful are the illustrators who dabbled around the edges of the story to capture the mood without forcing the reader to face a concrete manifestation of the supernatural painting.

Henry Keen's illustration for 1925 The Bodley Head edition

J. E. Laboureur's Paris edition from 1928

To see the Pictures, ask for: Val 826 W64 U51; Val 826 W64 U512; Presses L629wip; Illus K25w; and Illus L114xw

Pass (on) the Corned Beef

A member of the Hunt family recorded her distinct preference for desserts in a ledger book from the mid 1800s. Her recipe book has survived among the papers of five generations of the Hunt Family of Northampton, Massachusetts. Among dozens of newspaper clippings and handwritten notations are recipes for coconut macaroons, orange cake, cream pie, and ice cream. In addition to recipes, the book’s owner pasted in a number of practical household tips and popular remedies, including advice on silver polishing, pest prevention, freckle removal, and even goldfish husbandry. Dishes like Nottingham pudding, potted shad, and rice snow may be strange to today’s cooks, but familiar favorites like chicken salad, corned beef, and chocolate cake are also included.

One member of the cook’s family would not have approved of the corned beef. In addition to being a noted abolitionist and station master on the Underground Railroad, Seth Hunt (1814-1893) was a vocal vegetarian. He wrote a number of newspaper opinion articles on the benefits of a meat-free diet, proclaiming in one case: "Nature, in unmistakable language written on the anatomical structure of man, declares that his natural diet is derived from the vegetable kingdom, embracing the wonderful varieties of delicious fruits, glowing with rainbow hues and heavy with ambrosial juices; thus at once delighting the eye and regaling the taste." Hunt published vociferously on a variety of topics, and Rauner has clippings from many of his articles. It's documents like the recipe book, though, which give us a fuller picture of the quotidian life of a 19th-century New England family.

Both the recipe book and Seth Hunt’s newspaper clippings are part of the Hunt Family Collection at Rauner, which encompasses materials spanning nearly two hundred years of New England history. Ask for MS-1173.

Chime the Hour

Baker Library is one of the signature sights in Hanover.  Modeled after Independence Hall, the library stands high above the rest of the campus.  Housed in the tower, which was specially designed for them, is a set of sixteen bells, the largest of which weighs almost three tons.  The bell tones span an octave and a half (with a missing E flat) and carry on a tradition of marking the hours and class times.

Raising the bells to the tower, 1928

The bells were originally controlled by a mechanism similar to that used in a player piano.  A set of paper rolls (over 1,000 at one point) were created with holes punched in them.  As the rolls were fed through the controller, air was forced through the holes, which in turn made or broke electrical connections to the bell strikers.  The pattern encoded on the paper translated into the tune played on the bells.  Though the bells are controlled by a computer these days, the process is essentially the same pattern based method.

A view of the control room from 1980.

Tune selection has always been a matter of interest and the bells have been known to peal out everything from the Alma Mater to the Beatle's Yellow Submarine to the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The main limitation to what music can be successfully played is a physical one - immediate repeats of a particular note are not possible.  This made some requested songs, such as the Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want, sound less than ideal.

To learn more about the bells, ask for the vertical file "Library - Tower (Bells, Weather Vane, Clock)."  More images can be found in the photo file "Library - Baker - Bells."

Beautiful Writing

Try to imagine a time when beautiful handwriting was considered so important that writing masters traveled the country giving lessons on practical and ornamental penmanship. Calligraphy, from the Greek words meaning "beautiful writing," is well represented in the Rauner collections, which include over two hundred manuals, writing books, and manuscripts, originally gathered by Professor Ray Nash. Rauner also holds a small group of manuscripts and some fifty books on the art of calligraphy, acquired by the Library from various other sources.

N.C. Knapp's Practical and Ornamental Chirography, ca. 1830, is not a printed book, but an album filled with painstakingly hand-penned examples of the art of calligraphy. The elegant, flowing lines swirl gracefully into animal shapes, angels, and other ornamental designs in addition to the letters of the alphabet. Imagine the agony of discovering a mistake after such laborious effort. One wonders whether Knapp just never noticed the rather glaring one on his title page, or eventually discovered it and decided he, and we, would simply have to live with it.

Ask for Codex 003046.

Ford K. Sayre '33

In the fall of 1929 a young man from Glen Ridge, N.J. entered Dartmouth College and discovered his love for skiing. After graduating in 1933 he and his wife Margret (Peggy) became the managers at the Ravine Lodge on Moosilauke. In order to stimulate business at the Lodge, the Sayres started a junior ski school, held during the Christmas and February breaks. They fixed up a little farmhouse and called it Spyglass Hill. In 1935 the couple became the managers of the Hanover Inn and brought the ski school idea with them. On winter afternoons Ford would leave his office and take old skis and poles to various sites in the area, ready to teach any interested children to ski for free.

In 1942 Ford enlisted in the Army Air Force. After receiving training at Miami, Florida, he was assigned to duty as commanding officer of a regiment of African American troops in Spokane, Washington. However, his service was cut short when in 1944, during an air show meant to showcase the realism of aerial combat, the plane he was in collided with another, killing everyone on board. Wanting to continue her husband’s work with the ski school, Peggy asked that in lieu of sending flowers a fund be collected in Ford’s name so that his enthusiastic and effective interest in children’s skiing would be perpetuated.

By 1949 the demand for ski instruction was so great that the Community Junior Ski Council was formed to assist Peggy. By 1950 the JSC and the Ford K. Sayre Memorial Fund merged their activities into the present Ford. K. Sayre Memorial Ski Council so that in the spirit of Ford Sayre "Every child should have the chance to ski!"

To learn more about Ford K. Sayre and the Ford K. Sayre Memorial Ski Council ask for MS-1171 or his Alumni File.

Among the Clouds

Now that the Fourth of July has passed, it is time to think about heading for higher ground to escape the summer heat. If it were 1881, you might hop on a special train out of Boston and head for the White Mountains. Included in our large collection of material related to the White Mountains is Among the Clouds, a regular newspaper published "During the Season" from the summit of Mount Washington. It provided news of the comings and goings of tourists, updates on good scenery, and of course, the weather report.

This issue from July 13 was only the second of the season for 1881. It was clear and cool with a high temperature of 57, and the paper reported that the snow banks were still particularly large on Mount Washington. But it was more than just the cool weather that delighted:

The full moon shone down upon the low hanging clouds last evening which fills Pinkham Notch and the valley of Saco. It was a beautiful sight and brought back to recollection the many similar views that we have witnessed here before. The clear, limitless view of mid-day bears no comparison with that of Monday evening. The rugged outlines were softened, and one seemed to be almost in fairy land.

Ask for White Mountains F41.1 .A56 to learn more about 19th-century tourist life in the White Mountains.

Happy Birthday Hanover!

With the fall of Montreal to the British in September 1760, most of the continental fighting of the French and Indian War came to an end. Attention then turned to the peaceful settlement of northern New England. During his term of office, Royal Governor of New Hampshire Benning Wentworth granted over 140 town charters within the territory under his control, 78 of them in 1761 alone. Among these were the charters for several Upper Valley towns, on both sides of the Connecticut River, granted that summer.

In December of 1760, Edmund Freeman and Joseph Storrs had petitioned Govenor Wentworth for a grant, specifying land at the mouth of the Wells River, a particularly choice location in the beautiful and fertile Connecticut River valley. What Freeman, Storrs and their fellow proprietors received was the July 4, 1761, charter for the town of Hannover. The first settlers arrived in 1765, and by the time of a provincial census in 1767, the town had 92 residents.

The proprietors of Hanover were aware that the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock intended to establish his college in New Hampshire. To encourage his selection of Hanover as the site, they offered Wheelock large tracts of land, for support of the school and for himself personally. In August 1770, Wheelock, his family and a handful of students arrived on the Hanover plain to start the work of Dartmouth College.

The Library's latest exhibit, By His Excellency's Command, celebrates Hanover's 250th birthday. It will be on display in Baker Library Main Hall through August 31st.