News

Selected stories from the Beinecke Library, YaleNews, and external media outlets (the latter noted by source in parentheses after title of article).

  • Eight writers awarded Yale’s Windham-Campbell Prizes

    March 22, 2021

    Yale University on March 22 announced the eight recipients of the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prizes. The writers, whose work explores matters both personal and political, were honored for their literary achievement or promise. Each will receive $165,000 to support their work.

  • Exhibit on Edith Wharton, fiction and interior design opens online (Yale Daily News)

    March 14, 2021

    In an online exhibition called “Edith Wharton: Designing the Drawing Room,” Julia Carabatsos ’20 uses drawing rooms as a lens to look at Wharton’s novels and her ideas on interior design. The exhibit explores the connections between Wharton’s fiction — the work she is best known for — and Wharton’s passion for interior design.

  • Nobel Laureate Louise Glück on Teaching and Poetry

    March 9, 2021

    President Peter Salovey and Professor Louise Glück discuss her discovery of poetry, the importance of mentorship, and her love of teaching. Their conversation is followed by a recording of Professor Glück’s reading of her poem “October.”

  • The Literary Legacy Of Pauline Hopkins (WBUR)

    February 12, 2021

    Pauline Hopkins was a multitalented author, journalist and editor who pioneered horror, science fiction and fantasy writing at the turn of the 20th century. She wrote among the first (if not the first) theatrical drama and detective stories authored by a Black person, yet, her fiction does not have the same recognition as household names like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” nor does her nonfiction have the same acclaim as W.E.B. Du Bois’.

  • Meet the Winners of the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize (Book Riot)

    February 4, 2021

    The winners of the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prizes were announced last week to much excitement and acclaim. Recognizing exceptional literary achievement, the prize is awarded annually to eight authors writing in English anywhere in the world in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. It is among the world’s most generous literary prizes — administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library — with recipients receiving $165,000 to support their work.

  • The 50 Best Libraries in the United States (Town & Country)

    February 4, 2021

    What's as awe-inducing as the number of rare books Yale University's Beinecke Library holds (about 1 million, for the record)? To be frank, what holds them: A large glass tower that stands tall at the center of this marble, granite and bronze structure.

  • Biography Symposium 2021

    February 1, 2021

    REGISTER Wednesday February 24th, 12-1pm Langdon Hammer & Terrance Hayes Zoom Webinar Registration Information: https://bit.ly/38V8xz1 Thursday February...

  • Yale honors MLK throughout January (Yale Daily News)

    January 20, 2021

    he Beinecke library also celebrated MLK Day via Zoom by hosting a virtual talk on Monday with North Carolina State University professor Jason Miller on the intersections between Dr. King’s rhetoric and the writing of prominent African American poet Langston Hughes. “To be clear, Langston Hughes’ poetry hovers behind Dr. King’s metaphors like a watermark on bonded paper,” Miller told listeners during the event. “The poet that he [King] seemed drawn to most personally — that is, poems in which he personally sought out, rather than simply writing down when others spoke — includes the poetry of Langston Hughes, his wife Coretta’s favorite poet.” At the event, Miller presented several images from the Beinecke’s collection to more than 300 live participants at the webinar.

  • How Can We Read Edith Wharton Today? (New York Times)

    January 20, 2021

    “The Custom of the Country” (1913), like much that Edith Wharton wrote, can be described as a novel of manners. That’s to say, a social fiction in which the carefully observed customs of a particular society shape the characters’ actions and the plot. The designation somehow implies frivolity, or at least, traditionally, the feminine or domestic sphere (Jane Austen could be considered the first author of such works); and in this period of profound crisis in American society, it might seem easy to dismiss the relevance of such diverting works.

  • Merrill House writer Nicholas Boggs discusses his work on James Baldwin (The Day of New London)

    January 15, 2021

    Q. When you were searching for a thesis topic at Yale, were you aware of "Little Man, Little Man," and how did you learn more about it? A. I was taking a class on Baldwin, and the professor mentioned there was an out-of-print children's book by Baldwin housed at (Yale's) Beinecke (Rare Books & Manuscripts Library), so I went to check it out. I was fascinated by the backstory and its status as a literary work. Baldwin actually called it a "child's story for adults," and it was written entirely in what he called and celebrated as "Black English," a rarity for children's literature.