Not for purchase, but surely noteworthy

Today we took a walk over to UVa to check out a new exhibit at the university's "Institute for American History, Literature and Culture."

The exhibit, titled "Bestsellers: Popular Fiction in America," just opened last month, and will be on display through August.

From the exhibit's website:

"'Bestsellers' features rare and beautiful first editions from the University Library's Lillian Gary Taylor Collection of Popular American Fiction. Mrs. Taylor compiled a significant collection of bestselling novels and painstakingly recorded details of each book in her collecting journals. Mrs. Taylor's notebooks, authors' manuscript materials, early bestseller lists, scripts and photos from film adaptations, and modern bestsellers complement the books from the Taylor Collection."

It took all of two minutes to find something in the exhibit which was completely jaw-dropping. After initially having my attention drawn to a first edition of Last of the Mohicans, I saw just to its right an original manuscript of James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea.

There, in what must have been a roughly 15x6 in. book, was Cooper's handwriting filling page after page detailing the story that was the resurrection of Natty Bumppo into American Literature. Deborah and I were in awe, to say the least, not only because of what we were actually seeing, but also because the manuscript went a long way toward resolving a question we've been wondering about: How hard must it have been to be an editor back then?

Well, one look at this book and we were convinced that editing and typesetting was a massive task when handwriting was the only means for an author to get his or her words down on paper. The proofreading and the back and forth between author and publisher to make sure everything was just right must have been insane.

Sadly but understandably, we weren't allowed to take photographs in the exhibit, but we did learn that the special collections library at UVa does allow visitors to get a firsthand look at (and hopefully feel of) the items they house, so hopefully we'll have an even more intimate look at that manuscript, and more, in the fall.

Other notable items on display at the exhibit: First editions of The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Catcher in the Rye, Uncle Tom's Cabin, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22.