Harry Ransom Center — Attraction in Austin

Thanks to a friend who works on Campus, I was given a full tour and this was one of my favorite stops!

There are 3 must-sees here, 2 of which are permanent displays: -The Gutenberg Bible -The First Photograph -The Gone w/the Wind Exhibit

The Gutenberg bible display is great and what a beautiful piece of preserved historical literature! They do a great job of enclosing the display case w/the book from the entryway ruckus, but be warned, you may only get a minute or two, if that, to yourself to admire the work of art as it is a tight space and people are not shy about squeezing in on you to get their peek.

The First Photograph display is great as well! I actually had no idea UT even had this! The photograph itself is very small and super hard (if not impossible) to see up close. You have to stand back and admire it from afar and better yet, at an angle to make any discernible imagery out. The write-up on it is very informative!

The Gone w/the Wind exhibit was neat. I have not read the book or seen the movie, so I am not, by any means, an GWtW expert, but the exhibit had props from the set, some great info, a first edition, and there were showings of the original screen tests in the auditorium. They even had this cool board to post a "post-it"of your thoughts on the exhibit to be collected and archived daily.

Awesome on-campus discovery, especially for the low low price of FREE!

Can't wait to see their upcoming exhibit, Alice...

Last Friday, a few friends and I visited The Harry Ransom Center on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

I used to be a member of the Ransom Center, but I have not been back since COVID-19.

Admission is free. Masks are strongly encouraged in the building, and you are not allowed to bring bags, drinks or food into the museum; however, they do provide cubbies and lockers to leave your personal items.

You can see one of only 45 Gutenberg Bibles in the world in the museum. There are also two special exhibits going on at the moment.

I was fascinated by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez exhibition. The vast amount of letters, drafts, film and other collateral really paint an amazing picture of Marquez's life from days on the Colombian Caribbean coast as a boy to his Nobel Prize in Literature to his final days as an activist for climate change and other causes based out of Mexico City.

I myself just went to the library to pick up "100 Years of Solitude," which is his most famous book.

If you happen to visit the Harry Ransom Center, you can also see the LBJ Presidential Library and the Blanton Museum of Art, which are also both on the campus...

It's much larger than I thought it would be. There are only 5 complete Gutenberg Bibles in the US (more in Germany, though there are less than 25 complete ones still in existence), one of which is housed here. They also had a copy of Newton's Principia Mathematica; dated 1687, it is one of 4 surviving copies of the 1st edition. They had. A collection of plays printed in small books, mostly from the 1600s, including the first 6 volumes of Shakespeare. They had other things on exhibit, such as a section on Julia Child, but that's not really my thing. This is a real gem for bibliophiles and historians. Even if you can't claim to be either, the exhibits are highly educational and I strongly recommend coming here to at least see...