June 2014 | Rebecca Rego Barry

The McSweeney's Archive is Open!

mcsweeneys_large.jpgThe Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced earlier this week that the archive of the McSweeney's publishing company, founded in 1998 by Dave Eggers, is now fully cataloged and open for research. The Ransom Center acquired the archive--containing books, correspondence with notable writers, mock-ups, dummies, art, and proofs--in July of last year. This week, archivist Amy Armstrong has been highlighting pieces of the collection on the Ransom Center's blog.

Back in 2011, when we profiled Eggers, he said, "Our longevity is pretty startling to me. When we started, I thought we'd put out eight issues of the quarterly and that would be that. I never thought twelve years later we'd still be around and have a real staff, a real office, an actual database, and distributors and all this official stuff. It's pretty hard to believe."

Longevity, fame, and canonization too.

Image: Cover dummy of McSweeney's Quarterly Issue 38. Courtesy of the Ransom Center.