Classical Studies
Many books and a few manuscripts in the fields of classical philology, Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman history, and classical civilization can be found at the Ransom Center. The earliest texts are located in the Center's medieval manuscripts and incunabular collections. They are augmented by a notable portion of the library of Edward Alexander Parsons (1878-1962) and rare volumes acquired by Stark Young (1881-1963), theater critic, novelist, and former professor at the University.
The John Carter Collection of Catullus (ca. 84-54 BC) and the Center's Lucian (ca. 120-180) collection consist of about one hundred fifty editions each of those authors' works printed from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. These and other classical authors are represented in the Giorgio Uzielli Collection of Aldine imprints, in the Delphin Classics series ordered by Louis XIV for the use of the Dauphin, and in modern fine-press productions. Unique volumes in the collection include heavily annotated medieval editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses and Horace's Odes.
The Ransom Center is especially strong in translations of the classics, which survive as works of literature in their own right. Among the older writers, Marlowe's Ovid, Dryden's Virgil, and Pope's Homer should be mentioned; among moderns, the versions of Hilda Doolittle (H. D.), W. H. Auden, and Ezra Pound are especially notable.
Other holdings include a group of some 130 Egyptian papyri in Greek (2nd and 3rd centuries BC) and a large collection of "squeezes" (paper impressions of epigraphy from Greek and Latin monuments) made by Oscar W. Reinmuth, late professor of Classics at The University of Texas.
