Science Fiction and Fantasy
Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian
(1954). L.W. Currey Science Fiction
Collection.
In 1982 the Ransom Center acquired the 3,500-volume Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection formed by the specialist bookseller and bibliographer L.W. Currey. The Currey Collection emphasizes classic science fiction from 1818 (the publication date of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) to 1919, especially American and British interplanetary fiction (1827-1914), and American utopian fiction (1888-1900). There are also author collections of major 20th-century science fiction and fantasy writers with additional selected "high spots" of the modern period. These include Brian W. Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, J.G. Ballard, Ray Bradbury (major holdings), Arthur C. Clarke, John Collier, August Derleth, Philip K. Dick, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. Le Guin, H.P. Lovecraft (major holdings), Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake, J.R.R. Tolkien (emphasis on Lord Of The Rings), A.E. van Vogt, Kurt Vonnegut (major holdings), and Roger Zelazny.
Other important holdings in the science fiction and fantasy field include part of the library of L. Sprague and Catherine Cook de Camp (along with their extensive archive); Samuel L. Clemens's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), represented by a salesman's dummy with accompanying list of subscribers and a presentation copy inscribed by Clemens to Elsie Lyde; and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in both composite typescript and manuscript.
Registration for the Flair Symposium, November 13-15, 2008, is now open. Registration is open to the public with a limited number of spaces available to students at a discounted price. Members of the Harry Ransom Center also receive a discount.
Watch broadcast journalist Mike Wallace's interviews from the television program The Mike Wallace Interview. Wallace donated the show's footage on 16mm kinescope to the Ransom Center in the early 1960s. Most episodes have not been seen since they aired.
Where do you live: Squaresville or Beatnik Boro? Sunnyville or Crazyville?
