Credits

This exhibition is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. George B. Bolton of San Francisco, CA.

Curators

We would like to thank the curators of this exhibition: Lynda Fuller Clendenning, Interim Director of the Harrison Institute, and John M. Unsworth, Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and Associate Professor of English.

The University of Virginia Library extends a special note of gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. George B. Bolton of San Francisco, California, for sponsoring this exhibition celebrating Lillian Gary Taylor and her collection of popular American fiction.

The curators thank all of the library staff and students who have worked so hard on the exhibition: Garry Barrow, Winnie Chan, Gayle Cooper, Bradley J. Daigle, John DaVanzo, Peter Eubanks, Margaret Hrabe, Greg Johnson, Marie-Louise Kragh, Larissa Mehmet, Kate Moomaw, Heather Moore, Kathy Morgan, Melissa Norris, Mike Plunkett, Mercy Quintos, George Riser, Michael Tuite, Colette Turner, Shannon Wilson, and Daisy Wright.

The curators gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Prof. Unsworth's students in "Twentieth-Century American Literature" [ENTC 312; Spring 1998, 1999, and 2000] and "Studies in Fiction" [ENLT 226M; Fall 1999] at the University of Virginia. Thanks also go to Professor Marija Dalbello's students in "History of the Book" [Library Science 601; Spring 1999] at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The research of all these students has helped build the Bestsellers Database and informs much of the exhibition text.

The curators are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. E. Lee Clendenning of Hamburg, New York, for providing additional resources for the exhibition.

Thanks to our lenders: John Grisham and the Special Collections Department at Mississippi State University Library; the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University; and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at University of Texas at Austin.

Graphic design by Josef Beery.

Book photography by Erin Garvey.

Web site design for "Rave Reviews: Bestselling Fiction in America" by Garry Barrow, Design Web Manager, Communications & Publications Department, University of Virginia Library. Web site built and maintained by Bradley J. Daigle.

Materials from the physical exhibition were digitized by staff in Special Collections Digital Services, using the center's Epson Expression 1600 scanners, PhaseOne Digital Camera mounted on a Horseman LE 4x5 Camera. Images were enhanced for web display using Adobe Photoshop. The digital exhibition is optimized for viewing on a monitor that supports the display of 24-bit color.

About the Curators

 

Lynda Fuller Clendenning is the Interim Director of the Mary and David Harrison Institute of American History, Literature, and Culture. She devotes most of her time to planning public services for the institute and library that will be built in front of Alderman Library. Due to open in 2004, the Harrison Institute will include a large exhibition gallery, auditorium, offices for visiting scholars, and the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Clendenning has a liberal arts background in Literature (B.A., 1968), History (M.A., 1989), and Library Science (M.L.S., 1989). She is interested in how popular fiction has influenced American culture and in new ways to exhibit rare materials to appeal to students and community members. "Being able to work with the world-class literature collections at the University of Virginia is indeed a pleasure; to share them with the larger community a joy."

 

 

 

 

John Unsworth is Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) and a professor of English at the University of Virginia. As director of IATH, he oversees research projects across the disciplines in the humanities, publishes widely on the topic of electronic scholarship, and helps to secure grants for Institute projects. He has won two major grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, one for a project with the U.Va. Library to explore library collection and dissemination of born-digital scholarly research. The other will sponsor the creation of an electronic imprint at the University Press of Virginia. He is the principal designer and acting director of a new Master's degree in digital humanities at the University. In the English department, he teaches courses in hypertext theory, literary theory, postmodernism, popular fiction, publishing technologies, and American literature.

Unsworth earned his B.A. from Amherst in 1981 and has degrees in English from Boston University (M.A., 1982) and U.Va. (Ph.D., 1988). Following a one-year appointment at the University, Unsworth joined the English department at North Carolina State University. Here he co-founded and co-edited Postmodern Culture, the internet's first peer-reviewed scholarly journal-now part of Johns Hopkins UP's Project Muse. Unsworth returned to the University of Virginia in 1993 as director of IATH. For the most current information, see: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~jmu2m/.