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Everybody loves cartoons. They proliferate in modern newspapers and on the Internet. From Peanuts to Doonesbury, cartoons provide commentary and amusement for the reader. The sueltas collection at the Harry Ransom Center, currently being cataloged under a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources, also features its own first-rate cartoons. Created by Manuel Tovar, a famous twentieth-century caricaturist, these unique “monos,” as caricatures are known in Spanish, present unusual and interesting depictions of actors and actresses.

Born in Granada in 1875, Tovar illustrated postcards and painted fans and parasols as a young man. When he moved to Madrid, he fulfilled his life-long dream of working as a caricaturist and cartoonist, publishing his first cartoon in 1901 in the magazine Nuevo Mundo. Subsequently, he created cartoons in many well-known magazines and newspapers such as Blanco y Negro, La Correspondencia, El Gráfico, El Liberal, El Heraldo de Madrid, and El Cuento Semanal, whose cover he illustrated regularly for three years. For 15 years, Tovar created a popular daily cartoon for La Voz. He passed away suddenly in 1935, just after completing his daily entry.

Known for his sagacious wit and unique style, Tovar is widely considered one of the greatest caricaturists of his age. The sueltas collection contains a number of items from the “Novela Teatral” series, produced under the direction of José de Urquía from 1916 to 1925. This series is typical of the caricature work done by Tovar, which often depicted real figures in Madrid society. The “Novela Teatral” caricatures portrayed actors and actresses, but Tovar was perhaps most famous for his drawings of political figures and writers. In an interview, he once lamented that political cartoons had caused him a great deal of trouble, as many of his subjects found their representations less than flattering. His artistic style did not change in response to the criticism. He had one confrontation regarding a caricature of a government minister, Juan de la Cierva, who was illustrated wearing unattractive plaid pants. Embarrassed by the portrayal, the minister invited Tovar to inspect his wardrobe and note the lack of plaid pants. Another incident had Tovar hiding in the salon at a theater from an umbrella-brandishing disgruntled authoress who wished to punish the artist for his unflattering caricature of her.

Tovar is credited with having a profound and perfect knowledge of contemporary life in Madrid, and these delightful illustrations provide a fascinating look into the atmosphere of Madrid during the early twentieth century. The sueltas collection continues to provide us with opportunities for remarkable and thought-provoking study.

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Stories from the Sueltas: Cataloger sheds light on gems in the Spanish comedias sueltas collection

Illustrating the Sueltas

Actress Trinidad Rosales by Manuel Tovar.

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The Texas collection of comedias sueltas at the Ransom Center contains over 14,000 titles that provide valuable insight into Spanish literature from the second half of the seventeenth century through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thanks to a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources, Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, the cataloging work on this collection continues and is expected to be completed by February 2014. The cataloging of these items has revealed numerous interesting titles and phenomena, including illustrated sueltas.

There are several categories of illustrations found in the sueltas: scene illustrations, character and author portraits, and stage diagrams. These illustrations can help scholars better visualize a performance and improve the scholar’s understanding of the appearance and character of Spanish theater. Most sueltas were not illustrated. Because the sueltas were primarily intended for performance and not general reading, illustrations may have been an extraneous expense for publishers. Furthermore, the cost of paper dictated that as many words as possible be squeezed into available space. This makes the items that do have illustrations all the rarer and more interesting.

Scene illustrations:

A scene illustration is often an engraving of the characters in a moment of action. The actors are shown in costume, and the viewer can see the emotions on the faces of the actors. These illustrations are perhaps the most informative about the actual conception of a play. They are also, however, the rarest type of illustration. Images of the following scene illustrations can be seen in the slideshow.

The earliest illustrated suelta dates from 1775. The sueltas at this time generally consisted of text alone. One illustrated suelta includes a fairly crude scene illustration of a child being bathed and a woman ironing. The suelta, titled Letra a la tonadilla de la planchadora, was bound with a manuscript suelta called Sacristan y la viuda. Both items have received significant conservation work to separate and repair them. Ransom Center conservators also removed a sheet of tissue mounted onto the illustration.

The suelta Misantropía y arreptentimiento features a scene illustration unique for a number of reasons. First, the item is dated 1800, which is early in the suelta publishing phenomenon and even earlier in terms of suelta illustration. Furthermore, it pictures an artist’s elegant conceptualization of a dramatic moment in the play outside the confines of the theater. This engraving shows the moment taking place in “real life,” rather than on the stage.  This illustration is far more artistic in nature than typical scene illustrations.

The illustration in Roberto el Diablo is more typical in style of the scene illustrations found in the sueltas. For instance, note the stylized, almost cartoonish, faces and bodies of the characters and their exaggerated body language. The action is being emphasized, while the scenery lacks detail.  The presence of illustrations printed on the wrapper is also uncommon. It was not until later in the century that illustrated wrappers and the use of colored ink became more wide spread.

Character portraits:

Character portraits are among the most visually interesting illustrations. They are often reproduced from photographs, so the details are generally easier to make out than those of scene illustrations. One can see what the actor looked like in full costume. Some character portraits are produced as engravings that offer artistic representations, but still provide insight into the costumery of a main character. Character portraits tend to be of particularly interesting characters, such as the portraits of Boquerón and Nina featured in the slideshow.

Boquerón and Nina are both exceedingly flamboyant characters and the namesakes of the respective plays in which they are featured. Boquerón is a female actress dressed as a ridiculous male character. Note also that an enterprising reader has added a mustache and beard to Boquerón’s face. Nina is a scantily clad woman warrior. She is later featured in a sequel called Seña Manuela in which her costumery may be noted to be equally spectacular, but certainly less risqué.

Stage diagrams:

Stage diagrams are particularly illustrative of the mechanics of the Spanish theater.  A diagram shows how the stage was designed and where certain important props or scenery were placed. In an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s last novel Ninety-three, the stage diagram shows how a stage is altered after a set change. Particularly interesting is the presence of the “puerta secreta,” or secret door. Furthermore, this diagram helps the reader understand how the stage blocking would have looked to a theatergoer.

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Stories from the Sueltas: Cataloger sheds light on gems in the Spanish comedias sueltas collection

Unusual scene illustrations from the publisher’s wrapper from "Roberto el diablo," 1865.

Agustín Moreto's "Del Santo Christo de Cabrilla," 1670. Photo by Pete Smith.

Cataloging of the approximately 14,000 titles in the Texas collection of comedias sueltas at the Harry Ransom Center is well underway, funded by a grant received from the Council on Library and Information Resources, Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program. Appropriately named, this program seeks to support “libraries, archives, and museums that hold millions of items of potentially substantive intellectual value that are unknown and inaccessible to scholars.”

The suelta collection is not a recent acquisition. The first batch arrived in 1925 with a purchase from Professor Clifford M. Montgomery, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at The University of Texas at Austin. Several other sets of sueltas constituting the bulk…

A selection of discs from Denis Johnson’s collection. Johnson’s handwritten note states, ‘these discs are the only copies of any drafts from before 1992.’ Photo by Anthony Maddaloni. Image courtesy of Harry Ransom Center.

Since July 2011, Harry Ransom Center archivist Amy Armstrong has been processing and cataloging the Denis Johnson papers, which are now available for research. Armstrong shares her insight about processing the Johnson materials.

“Guess what collection I just started processing?” I asked my husband in a voice that implied he would be jealous. “Denis Johnson!” Johnson is the author of Jesus’ Son and Tree of Smoke. I have his books in my house and he is one of my husband’s favorite writers. So from the beginning, I felt lucky.…

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The Ransom Center has received a $10,000 grant from the Friends of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics to rehouse and rearrange its holdings of the Herschel family papers and to create an online finding aid.

The Herschel family papers, acquired in 1960 with subsequent smaller accessions of additional materials, largely represent the life and work of Sir John F. W. Herschel (1792-1871), the English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor. John Herschel has been called Britain’s first modern physical scientist, and his correspondence has been noted as one of the most valuable archives for 19th-century science.

The Herschel family papers at the Ransom Center form a significant resource for the study of the history of science in general and also for studies in several individual fields, such as astronomy, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. The lives of the Herschels, their pioneering achievements, their interactions with other leading scientists of their time and their influence on their colleagues’ work are topics scholars may pursue in the papers.

The Herschel family papers will be closed to scholars during the duration of the grant, which runs through Dec. 31, 2011.

A drawing of Halley's Comet by Sir John F. W. Herschel in 1835–1836.

In the spring of 2009, the Harry Ransom Center received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to catalog the Morris L. Ernst papers. The collection will be closed to researchers until the project is completed in the fall of 2011. During that time, a team of one full-time project archivist and two part-time assistant archivists will arrange, describe, and preserve the Ernst papers. They will also produce a standard finding aid (or guide to the collection), which will be available online.

During the cataloging process, the archivists aim to achieve two goals: access and preservation. The Ernst papers, despite being uncataloged, have been used frequently since their acquisition. Several lists and indexes to the papers exist, but they are…