Special Collections
Personal Effects
In addition to the books, manuscripts, and letters that usually make up an individual's archive, the Ransom Center often receives an object or personal effect that augments the archive and typifies the person. For example, the letter-opener belonging to the prolific author George Bernard Shaw, who sometimes wrote and received as many as one hundred letters a day, is included in his archive. Similarly, the archive of poet and painter E.E. Cummings contains the wooden paint box, tubes of oil paint, bottles of linseed oil, and spatulas that he used to create his many paintings.
Other items, like the lapis lazuli seal given to D.H. Lawrence by Lady Ottoline Morrell, illuminate the subject's friendships and associations. This is certainly the case with the hair brooch and mother-of-pearl compact given by Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, his childhood sweetheart whom he courted during the last year of his life.
Some of the objects in the Personal Effects Collection provide cultural context. Various writing implements belonging to Evelyn Waugh, Gertrude Stein and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among others, depict the shift from longhand to typewriter. The pervasiveness of smoking during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is represented by various writers' ashtrays and cigarette cases, as well as Compton MacKenzie's pipes and Carson McCullers's cigarette lighter. Pairs of eyeglasses, some with their cases, reflect the eras during which their owners worked: from Arthur Conan Doyle's simple metal-rimmed glasses to those of multi-colored plastic worn by poet Anne Sexton during the 1960s. The tortoiseshell sunglasses, complete with leopard-printed case, that were used by Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, are another iconic pair.
Several items in the Collections defy categorization, such as the unopened five yard roll of wallpaper border from playwright Terrence McNally; a pair of underwear belonging to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and a 1953 champagne magnum bottle from Pablo Picasso's wedding, signed by the artist and dated March 14, 1961 that he gave to his friend the photographer David Douglas Duncan.
Special Rooms
The Ransom Center has over a dozen Special Collection rooms, several of which are recreations of authors' offices, featuring period furniture, oriental rugs, collections of decorative arts such as silver or china, paintings, photographs, and personal libraries. Note: The rooms are available for viewing only by special advance arrangement through the Center's administrative offices.
After her success as Associate Editor of Look magazine in the 1940s, author and painter Fleur Cowles (b. 1910) created and edited the stylishly innovative FLAIR magazine in 1950. The Fleur Cowles Room is inspired by her study in Albany, her primary residence in Picadilly, London. The light chartreuse walls and the leopard printed sofa are offset by the black enamel and cream wicker furniture. The walls are adorned with original artworks by the author; the shelves filled with her favorite books and photographs.
The J. Frank Dobie Library contains the personal library, memorabilia, and furniture from the Austin, Texas home of Texas native, folklorist, author, and University of Texas at Austin English professor (1914-1947) J. Frank Dobie. The library numbers over twelve thousand volumes. Dobie's chair, crafted out of the polished horns of longhorns, is unique.
The John Foster and Janet Dulles Rooms replicate the study and living room of the Dulles home in Washington D.C. as it was during the time Dulles (1888-1959) served as Secretary of State under President Eisenhower. The living room is filled with Chippendale couches, Sheraton chairs, and eighteenth-century tables and chests. The room also contains many artifacts given to Dulles while Eisenhower was in office, such as a vase from West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, an engraved cigarette case from Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, and an oriental screen from Korean President Sygnamn Rhee. The study contains Dulles's 1750 vintage desk, books from the Dulles family library, paintings, and a Korean oak tree coffee table.
A full cabin-within-a-room, the Erle Stanley Gardner Study replicates detective novelist Gardner's workroom from his ranch home in Temecula, California. Peering through the windows, one can view the desk, chairs, cabinets, artifacts, and slightly suspicious decorations from Gardner's 1960s study. The walls of the exterior room feature first editions of many of Gardner's books, honorary police badges, photographs, letters, and television scripts for Perry Mason.
Theater owner, civic leader, and philanthropist Karl Hoblitzelle (1879-1967) dedicated the Esther Hoblitzelle Parlor to the memory of his wife. The parlor is furnished with silk wallpaper, Gibbons carvings, and Chippendale furniture from the family home in Dallas, Texas.
The Ransom Center has dedicated a suite of three rooms to Tom Lea (1907-2001), the Texas writer and painter known for his landscapes and Texas-Mexican border art. These contain examples of Lea's work and writings. The rooms also incorporate a Director's Gallery.
The Lundell Library room contains over six thousand volumes of rare botanical books and journals, some dating from the eighteenth century, collected by Dr. and Mrs. C.L. Lundell. The colonial furnishings, many of which are antiques, were purchased by the Lundells in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The dominant theme of the Cora Maud Oneal Room is nineteenth-century French. The room includes a settee and six chairs in gold leaf, a Gobelin tapestry (ca. 1800-1810), a magnificent Boulle center table (ca. 1810), a fine Boulle desk, and a Louis XV commode in satinwood with sèvres plaques, trimmed in gold bronze. The furniture is adorned with Meissen urns; rare Viennese, Venetian, and Baccarat Crystal; and a Dresden china centerpiece in the shape of a cart with cherubs, all dating from 1740 to 1850.
Paintings by Kelly Stevens, William Henry Huddle, Valentin de Zubiaurre, Eugene LePoitevin, and Angel Caraveille are displayed on the walls of the Kelly Stevens Room. The furniture consists of a mahogany empire sofa, art deco cabinet, Louis XVI commode, two Louis XV side chairs, a German twisted column pedestal, and a hexagonal top table. Decorative arts in this room include pottery made by Stevens, a pair of Baccarat purple glass urns, silver, and china from Meissen, Berlin, and Dresden.
The Willoughby-Blake Room was established by Clara Pope Willoughby and her husband Ray Willoughby in memory of Mrs. Willoughby's aunt, Ruth Starr Blake, a direct descendent of James Harper Starr, who was Secretary of the Treasury for the Republic of Texas. Included in the Blake Collection are Texian Campaign china (ca. 1840), one of the finest private collections of silver by English silversmith Hester Bateman (ca. 1774-1840), Steuben and Waterford crystal, Fulton, Jesuit tea services, a collection of Wedgwood silhouettes of kings, and a large number of Battersea boxes (ca. 1756). Also on display in this room are items from the Mrs. E.E. Sheffield Collection, including an oblong mahogany Georgian banquet table (ca. 1780) and Hepplewhite chairs (ca. 1770).
