Richard Oram is Associate Director and Hobby Foundation Librarian at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently working on a book about writers’ libraries.

Off the Shelf

Many famous authors’ personal book collections—Shakespeare, Fielding, Dickens—have been lost. Richard Oram, associate director of the Ransom Center, says we can learn a lot from these private libraries and looks at the case of writer Nancy Cunard. Plus, see photos of some of the books once owned by David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, and others.