News from the DeGolyer Library August 2023

DeGolyer Library was happy to provide reference material for Tracy Daugherty’s latest biography, Larry McMurtry: A Life, which will be released September 12th. Daugherty, a Midland, Texas, native and SMU alum, is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Oregon State University, and has previously published celebrated biographies of Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, and Donald Barthelme.

Andrew Graybill, Professor of History at SMU and Director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies reviewed the biography in the September issue of Texas Monthly, “Did Larry McMurtry Really Like Texas All that Much?“

On September 15th, the BBC will premier a new documentary about Coco Chanel, which was filmed in part at the DeGolyer Library. Coco Chanel: Unbuttoned explores Chanel’s iconic creations, set against the story of her life, from rural poverty to international acclaim and notoriety. The filmmakers featured items from the Stanley Marcus papers, which include items related to the designer’s 1957 visit to Dallas, where she was celebrated at the 20th Annual Neiman Marcus Fashion Exposition and given the Neiman Marcus award for Distinguished Services in the Field of Fashion. Click here to explore items related to this visit in our digital collections.

“I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere”: Collecting the Multilingual Canon

May 26th-September 22nd

The enduring appeal of fiction’s greatest detective is explored through selections from DeGolyer Library’s Donald J. Hobbs Collection, which contains more than 8,000 volumes and translations of the Sherlock Holmes canon in 108 languages.