The Portal
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The Portal
Armstrong Browning Library
One Bear Place #97152 • Waco, TX • 76798-7152
News from the Armstrong Browning Library
Location: 710 Speight Avenue, Waco, TX, 76706
Phone: (254) 710-3566 • Fax: (254) 710-3552
www.baylor.edu/library/abl
“A wondrous
portal opened
wide...”
Number 62 • Summer 2014
Number 62 • Summer 2014
Editor: Jennifer Borderud
ABL STAFF
Rita S. Patteson
Director &
Associate Professor/
Curator of Manuscripts
Dr. Joshua King
Margarett Root Brown Chair
in Robert Browning and
Victorian Studies/Associate
Professor of English
Jennifer Borderud
Assistant Librarian/
Access and Outreach
Jasmine Brown
Facilities and
Processing Assistant
Please Recycle
Boundless Life:
A Biography of Andrew Joseph Armstrong
by Dr. Scott Lewis
The Armstrong Browning Library proudly announces the release of
a new biography of our founder, Dr. A. Joseph Armstrong. Dr. Scott
Lewis, a Baylor graduate, Browning scholar, and friend of the Armstrong
Browning Library, produced this volume that reflects both his passion
for the Library and for the collection that
bears Dr. Armstrong’s name.
Boundless Life: A Biography of Andrew
Joseph Armstrong is available for purchase
at the Armstrong Browning Library Gift
Gallery for $24.95.
Visit the Armstrong Browning Library
and pick up a copy today, or contact us at
(254) 710-4966 and place your order for
this significant volume.
Cynthia A. Burgess
Librarian/
Curator of Books and
Printed Materials
Christi Klempnauer
Administrative Coordinator
Glenda Ross
Facilities Coordinator
Melvin H. Schuetz
Assistant to the Curators
Martha Ervin
Patricia Harvey
Mary Rodriguez
Mary Schrader
Library Hosts
I love thee
with a love
I seemed to lose
With my
lost saints.
— Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
“Sonnet 43”
Browning Day Brings Big Announcement
At this year’s Browning Day, a celebration of
Robert Browning’s 202nd birthday, Pattie Orr,
Vice President for Information Technology and
Dean of University Libraries, publicly announced
the selection of Dr. Joshua King, Associate
Professor of English at Baylor University, as the
next holder of the Margarett Root Brown Chair
in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies.
As Chair, Dr. King will serve as a scholar-inresidence for the Armstrong Browning Library,
researching and publishing on materials related
to the Library’s holdings and attending and
designing scholarly and outreach events to
promote the Library’s standing as a world center
for Victorian studies. “Dr. King’s work will
not only enhance the Library’s role as a center
of scholarship,” Rita Patteson, Director of the
Armstrong Browning Library, stated, “but also
strengthen ties between the Library, the Baylor
English department, and scholars around the
world.”
Dr. King joined Baylor University in 2008 as
Assistant Professor of English, specializing in
Romantic and Victorian literature. He regularly
teaches classes in the ABL’s seminar room and
incorporates the Library’s manuscript and rare
book materials into his curriculum. Dr. King
received his B.A. in English Literature from the
University of Virginia in 2001 and his Ph.D. in
English Literature from Harvard University in
2008. His primary research interests include
nineteenth-century British poetic form, religion,
and print culture. His monograph Imagined
Spiritual Communities in Britain’s Age of Print
is forthcoming (2015) with The Ohio State
University Press. Dr. King is also coordinator of
Baylor’s Nineteenth-Century Research Seminar
(19CRS).
Dr. Joshua King
Since its establishment by the Brown Foundation
in 1971, the Margarett Root Brown Chair has
been held by members of the Baylor faculty as
well as visiting international scholars. Dr. King
will begin his three-year term as Chair this
summer (2014) and will be eligible for additional
terms thereafter.
In addition to the Brown Chair announcement,
Browning Day opened with a warm welcome
by Rita Patteson and an invocation by Rebecca
Hans, representative from Baylor’s Sigma Tau
Delta English honor society.
Cellist Chris Martin performed music organized
by Carlos Colón, Resident Fellow of Baylor
University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and
Artist-in-Residence at the Armstrong Browning
Library, including an original composition by
Colón titled With My Lost Saints, inspired by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43” from
Sonnets from the Portuguese.
(continued on Page 2)
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Browning Letters Project Update
by Eric S. Ames
Members of the Digital Projects Group were excited to
participate in this year’s Browning Day celebration by presenting
an update on The Browning Letters project. After nearly three
years of amazing progress, we have reached a couple of major
milestones.
The first is the completion of digitization and uploading of the
Brownings’ correspondence from Wellesley College. This means
1,624 letters from Wellesley’s special collection are now part
of the project, bringing the total collection up to 4,451 items!
We believe that makes The Browning Letters project the largest
collection of Browning correspondence online.
The other big news is the addition of two major partners to the
project. The University of Texas at Austin and Balliol College
at the University of Oxford have both agreed to add their
substantial holdings of Browning correspondence to the project.
We are very excited to have them on board as partners, joining
Baylor, Wellesley and The Ohio State University as contributors
to the project.
You can see all the latest additions to the collection online at
www.baylor.edu/library/browningletters.
For more information on the project, we welcome emails at
[email protected].
Eric S. Ames is Curator of Digital Projects in Baylor’s Electronic
Library. He can be reached at [email protected].
ABL Welcomes New Staff
Acquisitions Spotlight
Jennifer Borderud joined the ABL
as Access and Outreach Librarian
in October 2013 after serving as
the Rare Books Catalog Librarian
in Baylor’s Central Libraries for
seven years. Jennifer received
her BA (2000) and MA (2003)
in English from Baylor and her
MSIS from the University of Texas
(2006). While writing her master’s
thesis Browning’s Companion Dear
and True: The Letters of Robert
Jennifer Borderud
and Sarianna Browning to Annie
Egerton Smith (2003), she held a
graduate assistantship with former ABL director Mairi Rennie.
Her current position is instrumental in providing access to and
promoting the use of the ABL’s unique collections.
The Altham Archive
Glenda Ross became Facilities
Coordinator in May 2014 after
serving as the ABL’s Facilities and
Processing Assistant since August
of last year. Glenda received
her BA in Art from Baylor and
has worked in education and
the private business sector. In
her current position, Glenda
is in charge of scheduling and
coordinating events held in the
ABL and overseeing the daily
Glenda Ross
operations of the public areas of
the building. She manages the Gift
Gallery, supervises the Library’s part-time hosts and work-study
students assigned to the main floor, and gives tours to visiting
school groups and senior adults. She also oversees the Library
when it is open for after-hour and special events.
Announcement (continued)
William J. Dube III, Director of Baylor University’s Endowed
Scholarship Program, presented D.M. Edwards with a plaque
in recognition of and appreciation for the establishment of the
D.M. Edwards Library Internship Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Assistant Director Darryl Stuhr and Curator of Digital
Collections Eric Ames, members of Baylor’s Digital Projects
Group, joined Ian Graham of Wellesley College and Anna
Sander and Fiona Godber from Balliol College at the University
of Oxford in providing an update on The Browning Letters
project.
Landing page for The Browning Letters
Number 62
Cynthia Burgess, Librarian and Curator of Books and Printed
Materials, closed the program, inviting attendees to a reception
in the Mary Maxwell Armstrong Seminar Room.
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An amazing accumulation of items once in the family of Henrietta
and William Surtees Cook, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sister
and brother-in-law, was added to the Armstrong Browning
Library collections in October 2013. The archive of over 2,000
items consists of books, printed materials, manuscripts, letters,
paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, furniture, pedigrees,
and relics that relate to the Cook (later Altham) family. The
oldest item, dating from the 15th century, is a watercolor of the
Altham coat of arms. The most recent is a letter from the 1990s
addressed to the great-granddaughter of Henrietta and Surtees.
To be precise, the archive adds another 25 letters to some 3,000
either written by or to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
that are already housed at the ABL; 1,388 pieces of family
correspondence (ranging from 1793 to 1998); 117 manuscripts
and documents (one being a manuscript in the hand of Elizabeth
Barrett, titled “Ten Desires,” written in 1828; along with notes
and papers relating to the settlement of Pen Browning’s estate;
and a sketchbook, with numerous pencil sketches of Hope End
and Sidmouth, by Henrietta); 178 books and printed materials
(9 from the Brownings’ own library; 32 titles not previously
at Baylor; and numerous clippings and papers); 54 paintings,
prints, and drawings (of particular significance is an oil portrait
of William Surtees Cook; a watercolor of EBB by her mother;
and an album of watercolors by Henrietta and Surtees’s daughter
Mary); 300 photographs (many in the Altham Family Album,
along with 16 images of EBB, Pen, and Casa Guidi); and 46 relics
and other objects (ranging in size from an 8-foot-tall Georgian
bookcase to a silver thimble with Hope End, EBB’s childhood
home, in bas-relief ). Several of the relics are now on display in
the EBB Salon.
Gift Preserves ABL Treasures
An extremely generous gift from an insightful donor, given in
memory of Sidney Claire Teague Davis (BA ’31), will enable the
replacement of the deteriorating sixty-plus-year-old air handler
unit which serves the majority of the Armstrong Browning
Library building. Combined with additional Baylor funds, the
gift provides the means for major improvement to the ABL’s
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The
resulting better temperature and humidity control will provide
a stronger preservation environment for ABL materials housed
on the Library’s second and third floors. Work on replacing the
air handler unit is scheduled for October and November 2014
and will curtail most events scheduled in the Library during that
period. Mrs. Davis, a student under Dr. A.J. Armstrong, loved
the library, and we are grateful for this significant investment in
preserving the Library’s important holdings in her memory.
Portraits of William Surtees Cook and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett
This archive supplements the extensive journals that Surtees
kept from about 1835 until just before his death in 1887. The
four-volume journal was acquired by the ABL in 2007 and can
be viewed digitally at http://bit.ly/surtees. It provides a unique
perspective of the Brownings and contains entries covering
details of Elizabeth’s death, as well as her father’s. Access to
these Altham materials will benefit not only Browning scholars
but those working in a wide range of disciplines in both the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly in the areas
of religion, military, politics, and social history. The materials
complement and enhance the depth and breadth of the Library’s
other nineteenth-century holdings.
Save the Date
Benefactors Day is scheduled
for Saturday, September 13,
2014, and will feature a concert,
organized by ABL Artist-inResidence Carlos Colón and
Baylor graduate Blake Clark.
The event will also mark the
official launch of Boundless Life:
A Biography of Andrew Joseph
Armstrong by Dr. Scott Lewis.
Dr. Lewis will sign copies of his
new book during the reception
that follows the concert. The book will be available for
purchase at the event.