Literature and the arts
These collections feature individual works by and about prominent literary figures and material related to the arts.
The Abbey Theatre tray cloth
Printed on linen, the cloth shows the 1913 cast of The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet, by George Bernard Shaw.
It was sold for $1.00 in April 1913 with proceeds going toward the establishment of a permanent gallery for modern art collected by Sir Hugh Lane, Lady Gregory's nephew.
Audrey Alexandra Brown collection
According to a family friend, Audrey Alexandra Brown "showed early signs of some kind of ability" from a very young age. She was born in Nanaimo, B.C. in 1904, never went to high school, but wrote her first poem when she was six years old.
Her work was brought to the attention of prestigious literary critic Pelham Edgar in 1921 and she proceeded to publish five volumes of verse, a prose diary, and several newspaper stories, essays and poems throughout her life. She won the Lorne Pierce medal in 1944 and the Order of Canada in 1967, but her work has been largely overlooked in both popular and academic contexts.
Gisèle Freund photographs of James Joyce in Paris
This exhibit features a series of photographs taken of James Joyce during his last years in Paris. The photographs were taken by Gisèle Freund and feature Joyce, his friends, family, and contemporaries including W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Henry Miller and Virginia Woolf.
More than half of the 161 photographs in the exhibit have never before been published and are presented by the University of Victoria Special Collections under an agreement with the Estate of Gisèle Freund/IMEC Images.
Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
In 1890, Oscar Wilde published the first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The 2011 teaching edition edited by Dr. James Gifford makes the 1890 version of the novel available for wider use, a version that differs considerably from the 1891 edition.
The teaching edition also includes an introduction, rich annotations and the text of the preface to later editions of the novel.
Robert Graves diary, 1935-1939
Robert Graves (1895-1985) is a major 20th-century English poet, novelist and essayist. After founding the Seizin Press he moved to Deyá, Majorca. The novels that made Graves famous—Goodbye to All That; I Claudius and Claudius the God—were written in this period, as were many poems, essays and prose pieces.
(See also photos from Robert Graves' 80th birthday celebration)