Jul 28th, 2008 · Shakespeare's tragedy — and Prokofiev's ballet — are plenty familiar, but critic Lloyd Schwartz says Mark Morris's new staging isn't: It's based on a forgotten manuscript recently discovered in Russia, and it's truer to Prokofiev's original intent.
Jun 14th, 2008 · A brigade of rescuers formed a human chain to protect a cache of rare manuscripts from rising waters at the University of Iowa. Film material used for cinema classes were also saved by the group. NPR's Andrea Seabrook talked with Nancy Baker, the university's director of libraries, who organized the rescue. According to Baker, hundreds of community volunteers showed up to help with the three-day effort.
May 13th, 2008 · Deep in the tropics of Bolivia, young musicians and others are keeping alive the legacy of the country's 17th-century Jesuit missionaries. A region with eight mission towns is home to the richest collection of Baroque manuscripts in the Americas and Asia.
Apr 30th, 2008 · Dmitri Nabokov talks about his father's unfinished novel, which scholars call The Original of Laura. Vladimir Nabokov's dying wish was for the novel to be burned, but Dmitri's mother couldn't bear to do it. Dmitri explains why he decided to save the manuscript from destruction.
Apr 2nd, 2008 · A rare collection of historic manuscripts goes on sale at Sotheby's Thursday. The highlight is a letter dated April 5, 1864, in which President Lincoln replies to a petition sent by 195 children from Concord, Mass., requesting that he free "all the little slave children in the country."
Dec 4th, 2007 · In A Slave No More, historian David W. Blight showcases the emancipation narratives of two men, one from Alabama and one from Virginia. Manuscripts written by Wallace Turnage and John Washington, and genealogical information compiled by Blight, combine to tell the stories of their lives as slaves and their harrowing flights to freedom.
Sep 22nd, 2007 · More than 60 years after she died at Auschwitz, Irene Nemirovsky's novels are garnering worldwide recognition. For decades, her daughter, Denise, kept the manuscripts in a suitcase. Now that the novels are published, they are closing a chapter for Denise.
Jul 1st, 2007 · Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Philadelphia announced it had recovered the original manuscript of Peal S. Buck's award-winning novel, The Good Earth. The document had been missing since the mid-1960s. Donna Rhodes, who curates the Pearl S. Buck International Collection and was involved in authenticating the manuscript, talks with Debbie Elliott.