Skip to main content

Richard and Sandra Lauderdale Graham Brazilian Chapbook and Slides Collection

 Collection
Identifier: MS 0650
Finding aid note: Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of fifty-seven inexpensively produced booklets of verse with woodblock print or photo image covers. The booklets are quarto size, 4-3/4” by 6-3/8”, and range in length from eight to forty-eight pages. The content is in verse in stanzas of six, seven, eight, or ten lines. The booklets are examples of a folk art known as literature de cordel, or “string literature,” because of being attached to strings as a means of displaying them for sale. The content, meant for peasant audiences, is about real and imaginary events and characters.

Scope and Contents

540 of Richard Graham's slides of Rio de Janeiro were added to the collection in 2019.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1960-1990

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This material is open for research.

Stored offsite at the Library Service Center and require 24-hour notice for retrieval. Please contact the Woodson Research Center at 713-348-2586 or woodson@rice.edu for more information.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from the Brazilian Chapbook and Slides Collection must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library.

Biographical / Historical

The inexpensively printed booklets or pamphlets known as cordel literature (from the Portuguese term literatura de cordel, literally “string literature”) originated in rural northeastern Brazil as humble poets and artists used this means to reach a popular audience. Containing folk novels, poems, and songs illustrated initially with woodblock prints and later with photo images, these booklets were sold at fairs and by street vendors. Production of the booklets reached a peak in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but the present collection makes clear that they were still being created in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Many of the booklets are by unknown authors, but names identifying the writers of others include Jose Soares da Silva, Marcelo Soares, Davi Teixeira, Maca Moreco, and Altair Leal. Artists of the illustrations are likewise not always identified, but the woodblock prints of at least Jose Francisco Borges are accompanied by his name. Borges’ work has been exhibited in the Louvre and the Smithsonian.

Extent

1 Linear Feet (1 box)

Language of Materials

Portuguese

Abstract

The collection consists of fifty-seven inexpensively produced booklets of verse with woodblock print or photo image covers. The booklets are quarto size, 4-3/4” by 6-3/8”, and range in length from eight to forty-eight pages. The content is in verse in stanzas of six, seven, eight, or ten lines. The booklets are examples of a folk art known as literature de cordel, or “string literature,” because of being attached to strings as a means of displaying them for sale. The content, meant for peasant audiences, is about real and imaginary events and characters.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was a gift donated by Richard and Sandra Lauderdale Graham in 2014.

Title
Guide to the Richard and Sandra Lauderdale Graham Brazilian Chapbook and Slides Collection
Status
Completed
Author
Mary Tobin
Date
2016
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Woodson Research Center, Rice University, Houston, Texas Repository

Contact:
Fondren Library MS-44, Rice University
6100 Main St.
Houston Texas 77005 USA
713-348-2586