Literature

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Researchers visiting Special Collections will find several large literary collections, in addition to a wide variety of first editions over the past five centuries. There are strong holdings in eighteenth century British literature with virtually all the editions and critical works on Shakespeare along with all the important men and women writers of the century. Works by such modern authors as Walt Whitman, Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, and Jorge Luis Borges are also here. American small press poetry of the 1960s-1970s is available, as well as the Michigan Writers Collection, which features the published works and many of the manuscripts of prominent writers with ties to the state.

Online Resources

• The Michigan Writer's Collection - Biographical and bibliographic information of some of the authors in the collection.
• The Michigan Writers Series - This series features individual Michigan writers for an evening of readings and discussion with their audience. With the writer's permission, the reading, discussion, and a short interview is taped and made available online.

Did You Know ...

• Among the extensive holdings of James Fenimore Cooper in the Literature Materials is The Oak Openings, or, the Bee Hunter, (New York, 1848), a novel set in Michigan.
• A monument of English literature, the two volume first edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, (London, 1755) is held in Special Collections among the Literature Materials.
• Special Collections has many Black Sun Press publications, including one of 500 copies of James Joyce's Tales Told of Shem and Shaun, (Paris, 1930). From the Literature Materials.