Kenneth Spencer Research Library

A guest post from Vella Munn

Securing a final resting place for my grandfather Homer Eon Flint’s body of published fiction at the University of Kansas began with a backdoor approach. An email I sent to a man involved with Science Fiction Writers of America led to an introduction to James Gunn, SF writer, scholar, and founder of KU’s Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and from there to a series of emails with Special Collections librarian Elspeth Healey.

Homer Eon Flint, photograph courtesy of Vella Munn

As a result, nineteen 90+ year-old pulp magazines such as Argosy All-Story Weekly, Fantastic Novels, and Flynn’s carrying Grandpa’s work are no longer disintegrating in my office. They’re being preserved by those who know how to treat the fragile publications, and I no longer worry that I’m not doing right by what I inherited.

The youngest of four children, Homer Eon Flint was born on Sept. 9, 1888 in Albany, Oregon. He devoured H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Conan Doyle, and Rider Haggard, all known for their romantic fiction, and they made an indelible impact on him. With the encouragement of his wife, a teacher, and a hefty hospital bill to pay off, he started writing. He sold at least eight movie treatments for the fledgling film industry before moving onto short stories, penning everything from horror to humor.

Pictured above: The first installment of Homer Eon Flint’s “The Money-Miler” in Flynn’s, Vol. 1, No. 3,
October 4, 1924 (Call Number: ASF C924);  Cover of the issue of Flynn’s that contained the second
installment of Flint’s “The Money-Miler,” Vol. 1, No. 4, October 11, 1924 (Call Number: ASF C925);
and protective enclosures used to house the fragile pulp magazines.

Flint made his mark with such science fiction as “The Emancipatrix,” “The Devolutionist,” “The Lord of Death,” “The Queen of Life,” and his co-written book The Blind Spot. Some two and a half million readers devoured The Planeteer. “The Money-Miler” ( Flynn’s, October 4-18, 1924) was his last sale. He made it a month before his violent and mysterious death at 36. His 1924 payment for that novella-length story–$400.

In addition, Homer wrote a number of stories that weren’t published. Those as well as his published work are being brought out by Musa Publishing.

Vella Munn
Vella Munn has written a biography of Homer Eon Flint, titled Grandfather Lost.

Summer Conservation Intern Cheyenne Bsaies reports on how to house huge, metal-clad volumes.

I want to talk to you about boxes. It’s a deceptively simple topic, truly. But the boxes I’m talking about are a far cry from the corrugated boxes every college student knows from moving apartments every summer. For one thing, the boxes I’ve been making are destined to house some of the rarer items in the Spencer collections. They’re studier than a corrugated box, they open differently and they’re cloth covered. In short, they’re very fancy boxes for very interesting and unusual tomes.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing and/or handling a very old book, I highly recommend that you visit the Spencer Library and speak to a librarian there in order to avail yourself of their resources. Maybe the only old books you’ve seen have been in the movies when the protagonist uncovers a secret in an ancient library. They’re huge, leather beasts covered with metal studs and straps and clasps, and you just know something important is going to happen when the hero opens one of them.

Left: Steinhardt Gradual. France, after 1253,  (Call No.: MS J4:2); Right: Antiphonary,
Germany, 15–, (Call No.: MS J4:1). Click images to enlarge (trust us, they’re worth enlarging).

Well, those are exactly the books I had the pleasure of working with on this project! And, I have to admit, it’s hard not to feel a bit like Indiana Jones when turning their pages. First I’ll introduce each of them, talk about some of their special features, and then I’ll describe the box making process. Read the rest of this entry »

On a hot July morning two Mondays ago, a bus pulled up in front of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library and out stepped seventeen scholars.  The erudite visitors were participants in Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries, a five-week NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers held at the University of Missouri and led by Dr. Devoney Looser. After some much-needed tea and victuals in Spencer’s North Gallery (the bus had left Columbia, MO at 5:45 am, after all), the scholars settled in for a day of workshops and research.  No time for pianoforte or leisurely games of cards for these visitors!  The morning’s activities included sessions with Spencer Library staff addressing genres of documents prevalent during Austen’s time, 18th- and 19th- century handwriting, and reference resources for working with rare books and manuscripts.

Say “Northanger Abbey!”:  Participants in the NEH Summer Seminar “Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries”
with Spencer Library staff.

In the afternoon, the scholars retired to the reading room where they threw themselves into conducting research with some of Spencer’s late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscript collections. Read the rest of this entry »

The word “iconic” is often overused, but I believe it describes, better than any other word, the power of the Spencer’s North Gallery. People who have not been on campus for decades remember “the red room,” or the “room with the books.” Often, of course, they remember the “room with the view of the Campanile.”

Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s North Gallery, view into the
Summerfield and P. S. O’Hegarty collections. Click image to enlarge.

The exposed shelving of the North Gallery (once called “the Ambulatory”) has housed outstanding items from Special Collections since the opening of the library in 1968. Its visual and intellectual appeal cannot be overstated. It not only houses books, like a section of the larger Summerfield volumes, for example, but intriguing artifacts like several horn books and the jumbled writs of habeus corpus that fascinate visitors every day.

Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s North Gallery, with view of the Rilke Collection
and the horn books (center shelf) on display. Click image to enlarge.

The Spencer collections, however, are not the same as they were in 1968 when the third floor was the province of Special Collections and books were the name of the game. With the consolidation of the public spaces of Special Collections, Kansas Collection, and University Archives in the early years of the 21st century, and the continuing desire to provide a more interpretive context for our collections in general, we are considering how best to program this stunning space as a true gallery. An enthusiastic group of Museum Studies students recently completed a project to explore bringing diversity and experience into the space through an interesting array of physical and virtual exhibit “stations.”

What would you like see in our signature space for visitors? Is there something we should consider as we move forward with these plans? I’d welcome your input and suggestions as we look ahead to the future of the North Gallery.

Amazing vistas: A wide view of the North Gallery (top)
and looking outward onto the Campanile (bottom).
Click images to enlarge.

Beth M. Whittaker
Head of Kenneth Spencer Research Library

No kidding, there really was a seven-headed hydra, and it took an 18th century St. George to slay it:  Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. In Hamburg, Germany, Linnaeus exposed as a fake the specimen of a seven-headed hydra that its owner, the mayor of Hamburg, had been trying to sell–and his asking price was high. This curious critter had been looted from a church in 1648 after the Battle of Prague and had come into the mayor’s hands. Even the king of Denmark had supposedly made an unsuccessful bid for it. The mayor found he was having to lower his price, which had been falling steadily when Linnaeus tactlessly published his findings that the jaws and feet were those of a weasel and that carefully joined snake-skins covered the body. Fearing the mayor’s revenge for rendering his hydra worthless, the Swede made a hasty exit from the city. The Kenneth Spencer Research Library holds a significant collection of Linnaeus and Linnaeana (follow the link and scroll down for a brief description of the collection).

Historiae Naturalis de Serpentibus, by Joannes Jonstonus (1603-1675). Heilbronnae: apud Franciscum
Iosephum Eckebrecht, 1757. Call Number: Ellis Omnia E26 item 2. (Click image to enlarge.)

Jonstonus (or Jonston, sometimes Johnstone) was a naturalist of Scottish descent born in Poland. After studying botany and medicine at Cambridge, he settled in Leiden in order to indulge his interest in natural history. His writings are criticized as laborious compilations, and the copper-plate engravings are mostly copies from Belon, Rondelet, Gessner, and others.

Sally Haines
Rare Books Cataloger
Adapted from her Spencer Research Library exhibit and catalog, Slithy Toves: Illustrated Classic Herpetological Books at the University of Kansas in Pictures and Conservations (print copies of the exhibition catalog are available at KU Libraries).