{"id":1011,"date":"2011-06-11T03:53:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T03:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2011-06-11T03:53:58","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T03:53:58","slug":"39th-annual-meeting-book-and-paper-session-june-3rd-cut-and-tape-marguerite-yourcenars-emendation-to-a-typescript-of-loeuvre-au-noir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2011\/06\/11\/39th-annual-meeting-book-and-paper-session-june-3rd-cut-and-tape-marguerite-yourcenars-emendation-to-a-typescript-of-loeuvre-au-noir\/","title":{"rendered":"39th Annual Meeting \u2013 Book and Paper Session, June 3rd \u201cCut and Tape: Marguerite Yourcenar’s Emendation to a Typescript of L’Oeuvre Au Noir”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theresa Smith of Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard University<\/a> presented her treatment of the heavily edited typescript manuscript of Marguerite Yourcenar’s L’Oeuvre Au Noir. The manuscript, begun in 1956, had been bound into 2 volumes after its completion in 1968. The author’s editing techniques presented unique challenges as she made changes to her manuscript by taping new strips of paper over old sentences. Nor did she stop at just one layer. Throughout the course of conserving the manuscript, Theresa found pages with no less than 17 layers of changes, all stuck together with pressure sensitive tape. To make matters even more complicated, Yourcenar would often edit over the typewritten emendations with handwritten notes, making the tape on which these notes were written a part of the manuscript. Long term stability concerns aside, the tape with these notes could not be removed from the manuscript.<\/p>\n

When all was calculated and done, the manuscript was estimated to have 6,725 inches of pressure sensitive tape (most of it failing) and at least eight different paper stocks. Tape on the coated paper stocks remained strong and in place, and in the past, researchers with more curiosity than sense had pried up and damaged the strips in an attempt to see underneath them. \u00a0On the other hand,\u00a0the tape adhesives had mostly failed on the uncoated papers, leaving the strips of edited text floating free. \u00a0The manuscript was in an extremely compromised condition and \u00a0access not been granted to researchers for years. Obviously something needed to be done, but the project was a complicated one that spanned two conservators. \u00a0Theresa, who collaborated closely with the collection’s curator when making treatment decisions,\u00a0worked through the manuscript one page at a time to carefully reconstruct the complex and layered structure of the\u00a0emendations.<\/p>\n

Briefly, here are the primary points of the treatment as completed by Theresa.<\/p>\n