C.S. Lewis’ bust sits on a desk and chair that belonged to the author, displayed at the Marion E. Wade Center. Photo credit: Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune.
Have you always wondered what it looked like at the desk where J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his stories or the wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis to write the first chapter of The Chronicles of Narnia? Well, you can see these little treasures with your own eyes, if you are near Wheaton, Illinois, US.
The Marion E. Wade Center on Wheaton College’s campus, founded nearly 50 years ago and opened in 2001, showcases memorabilia and rotating displays which highlight selections from a large collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and artifacts. The permanent pieces on display in the museum belonged to famous authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Owen Barfield. Among the pieces on display there are some pens and a desk belonged to J.R.R. Tolkien, where he drafted parts of The Lord of the Rings. Also, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit, it has been prepared a display featuring a large-scale map of Middle-earth, and another one with merchandise from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Marjorie Mead, the center’s associate director, said that the “visitors are encouraged to lose themselves in the work and interact with treasured pieces. A lot of people come because they’ve read these authors and they’ve had a personal connection to these books, they also enjoy the history of it. They’re able to see the actual letters, the manuscripts and early editions of the books.”
The center’s collection attracts about 9,000 visitors a year, including several scholars from around the world. This great success led to a plan of expansion of the Wade Center, and the construction should start in July and go through early 2015.
Andrew Lazo, a Houston scholar affiliated with the C.S. Lewis Foundation, stated: “Anybody can come and pull a book off the shelf here. They treat everybody the same and will make their resources available to school kids who want to poke their heads in the wardrobe to see if they disappear or to serious scholars who do groundbreaking work.”
You can find more information about the history of the museum, the current exhibits and more on The Marion E. Wade Center official website.
