Marginalia and Beckett

Like the source, Brainpicking, I am fond of other people's marginalia.  One of the biggest exhibits of notated diaries, journals and sketchbooks I had the pleasure to see was at the American Folk Arts Museum in late 2001, when they featured Henry Darger.  (Now part of their permanent collection.)

Rare Henry Darger photograph, via Wikipedia

It always amazes me to discover where a collection resides, and Harry Ransom at the University of Texas at Austin, appears to be a storehouse of a wide ranging number of paper collections.   It is the Ransom that also featured Shay's Greenwich Village Bookstore Door which I wrote about here.

Now it appears they have some fascinating notebooks penned by Samuel Beckett.  Beckett, nearly a household name in some literary families, not an easy read, but perhaps something will be gleaned from his marginalia about waiting.

Information about this collection's acquisition appears on line.  Having been on the Aquistion Committee of a small museum myself, I know it is often a museum or collector's good fortune in more ways than one that they are able to bring together the work of the lost, famous and retired writings and art works of brand names like Samuel Beckett.

Marginalia is in some small part of the altered book genre.  I remember when I was first introduced to the concept of "altering a book." It was during my wide ranging research on book arts.  Even my exposure to Darger came from those explorations through a book exhibit.

Now that I have nearly organized the upstairs spare bedroom to an almost "studio" I see the makings of many projects as I have plethoric inventories of acrylic, mediums and paper, the makings for an entire exhibit of my own.   I am also a minor league writer of margin notes.