Frost Exhibition
WITH THE ARRIVAL of the unique copy of Twilight and other rarities from the great Earle Bernheimer collection, Baker Library last month presented Fifty Years of Robert Frost, the most complete exhibition ever held in honor of America's foremost man of letters and Dartmouth's new George Ticknor Fellow in the Humanities.
From the appearance of "My Butterfly" in The Independent, following Professor Frost's brief undergraduate career here, to the holograph manuscript of "A Masque of Reason," the long unpublished poem that he read to fellow members of the Humanities Division at a homecoming party on October 1, the show composed, with abundant footnotes, a rich chronicle of half a century of work.
The foundation of the exhibition was the group of first editions of Mr. Frost's seven books. Number one among these was A Boy's Will published in London just thirty years ago. Then came North of Boston, Mowitain Interval, New Hampshire,West Running Brook, A Further Range, and finally A Witness Tree, all of them surrounded by a bibliographical maze of separate printings and fugitive bits.
The showing of manuscripts, however, Was the most impressive feature. Mr. Bernheimer loaned the original holograph manuscript together with the corrected typescript from which the printer'worked on Mr. Frost's latest book, and Richard H. Thornton's manuscript in the author's hand of West Running Brook was on display. These important loan items, along with other manuscripts in the Library's possession or made available for the occasion by Mr. Frost himself, demonstrated the adventures of a poem in the making. Also on loan from the Bernheimer collection was a copy of The Atlantic Monthly for August, 1915, containing "Birches," "The Road Not Taken" and "The Sound of Trees" where the author has penned "Beginning of it all in America."
One entire case was devoted to an assortment of pieces relating to Mr. Frost's days—or months, rather—at Dartmouth, including a view of Wentworth Hall where he lived as a student. Among these the most arresting was a letter of reminiscences about those early days which he wrote in 1915. There were also shown a group of essays about Robert Frost written at various times by members of the faculty, including Professors Francis Childs, Sidney Cox, David Lambuth, Stearns Morse and Ray Nash.
The Fifty Years of Robert Frost exhibition was arranged by the assistant librarian, Mr. H. G. Rugg, who is also a collector of Frostiana, and Miss Mildred Saunders, archivist.
Concurrently, in the Carpenter Galleries, there was an exhibition of wood-engravings by the noted American artist J. J. Lankes. These showed Mr. Lankes as principal illustrator of Mr. Frost's books and also many subjects taken from the Frost farm in Vermont.
