SCOPE AND CONTENT OVERVIEW

This archive presents an unrecorded and comprehensive primary research record tracking the late-career performance realities, high-profile institutional accolades, and intimate biographical narratives of Tony Award-winning tap pioneer Charles 'Honi' Coles (1911–1992). Preserved systematically within the private files of Ben Raeburn, the visionary founder of Horizon Press, and his companion Pat Pearcy, the collection represents a significant administrative and personal nexus. It seamlessly bridges Coles's highly visible public achievements—such as major unrecorded galas at the Joyce Theater and landmark concerts at Carnegie Hall—with deeply candid, unvarnished correspondence from the road.

Rather than merely aggregating standard promotional theatrical ephemera, this dossier is unified by immediate contemporary manuscript commentary. It details the precarious physical toll of touring on an aging performer, the resilient mutual support networks maintained by aging Black vernacular dancers, and the immediate grassroots efforts of Coles's inner circle to safeguard his legacy for future scholarship following his passing.

Collection Overview 

John Gerhard Kristensen, Boston / Somerville, Massachusetts
Late 1980s–2014                                                                                                    $1500

This archive comprises thirteen items produced at Firefly Press, including eleven letterpress broadsides and two closely related typographic works in offprint and pamphlet form. The material spans roughly the late 1980s through 2014 and documents Firefly Press work created for teaching visits, bibliophile societies, poetry outreach programs, typographic exhibitions, and private or printer’s-file keepsakes.

Together, the group reflects Firefly Press’s sustained engagement with classical typography, historical quotation, book arts education, and contemporary literary culture in Boston and New England.

Established in the final years of the Lost Generation, Harrison of Paris was the collaborative press of Monroe Wheeler, Glenway Wescott, and Barbara Harrison. Though limited to thirteen titles, it stands as a precursor to modern graphic design.

Rejecting traditional fine press conventions, Wheeler favored clarity, experimental typography, and modern illustration, commissioning artists such as Christian Bérard and Pierre Falké.

Wheeler later carried this aesthetic to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, shaping its visual identity for decades. These volumes represent the early work of a major American tastemaker.

Provenance: Association copies from the libraries of Wheeler and Wescott, linking the group to their circle, including Edith Sitwell and Jean Cocteau.

THE EVIDENCE SURVIVES

The thirty-five items assembled here share little in subject and much in purpose. Each preserves a fragment of a larger story: a publisher's archive, a photographer's working record, a soldier's letter, an author's association copy, a forgotten promotional piece, a surviving group of photographs.

Collectively they demonstrate the enduring power of primary-source material to illuminate lives, institutions, and moments that rarely survive intact. From literary history to transportation, photography, typography, and Americana, this preview catalog celebrates the artifacts that remain when the event itself has long passed.