Highlights of 1984

Work in progress: McCullers' Wedding takes shape. Les Todd

Nineteen eighty-four was a remarkable year for the acquisition of rare books and manuscripts, which were managed separately at that time in the Manuscript Department, located on the third floor of Perkins Library, and the Rare Book Collection, located in the Mary Duke Biddle Rare Book Room.

Highlights of the year's additions included papyrus fragments, donated by William H. Willis; two early books related to geometry, donated by the Friends of the Library in memory of the late dean of the engineering school, Aleksandar Vesic; the eighty-seventh Greek manuscript acquired for the Kenneth Willis Clark collection; a draft of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding, containing several passages not included in the finished work; the 1647 first edition of the Comedies and Tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher; and the papers of Romeo Guest related to the founding of Research Triangle Park.

The diversity of the materials highlights the range of academic interests in the university at the time and the corresponding breadth of acquisitions made to provide students and faculty members the opportunity to work with a wide variety of original materials and primary sources.