James Yerkes, who for many years published online news pertaining to John Updike in The Centaurian, and who received The John Updike Society’s first Distinguished Service Award in 2010, has donated the collection of Updike books, letters, galleys, and Updike-related materials he amassed with his wife, Ruth, to Gustavus Adolphus College.

Here’s the announcement from Gustavus Adolphus:

The John Updike Collection of James and Ruth Yerkes has been generously donated to the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. James Yerkes, retired professor of religion and philosophy at Moravian College and editor of a scholarly collection of essays, John Updike and Religion (Eerdmans, 1999), amassed a collection of works by and about the prolific American novelist and critic. Yerkes posted news and commentary about Updike at a website, The Centaurian, which he founded in 1996. He continued to update it for 14 years, until his web host suffered a server malfunction and ceased providing web services. (Remnants of the site, previously found at http://userpages.prexar.com/joyerkes/, are available in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.)

The collection includes signed first editions, paperback editions, galley proofs and advanced reader copies of Updike’s novels, short stories, poetry, criticism, and children’s books. It also includes stories and essays by Updike published in magazines, as well as limited editions, broadsides, audio and video recordings, materials from public appearances, and works about Updike.

In addition to these materials, the collection includes hand-typed postcards from the author to Yerkes, many of them conveying his bemused feelings about the Internet, as well as correspondence from website visitors, fascinating documentation of the cultural role a popular website devoted to an American author played during the early days of the World Wide Web.

For further information about this collection, which is still being processed, contact Barbara Fister (foster@gustavus.edu).

Gustavus Adolphus College is a private, four-year, liberal arts college that was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. Located in St. Peter, Minnesota (near Mankato), the college has a student population of 2600, on average. The library will undergo a renovation in 2014.

Member Jeffrey Ludwig writes that the University of Rochester Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is currently hosting an exhibit called “Nurturing Inquiry,” which will showcase work done by scholars who have used the UR collections for research and/or publication.

“One of the cases, which I helped put together, centers on the Christopher Lasch papers,” Ludwig writes. “In particular I filled it with a good amount of stuff related to Lasch and Updike. It features my JUR article on Lasch and Updike at Harvard, and also some relevant letters, pictures, and a brief retrospective from me.”

Here’s the link. If you click on the letter icon on the lower column, left side, you’ll be able to magnify “a pretty neat image of a letter Lasch wrote about Updike. In addition to providing colorful details about their relationship in 1954 (their senior year, after Updike got married)—the letter includes a sketch Lasch drew of Updike’s head. It’s simple but I think recognizably Updike!”

Jack Mitchell, whose portraits of famous people included numerous writers—a young John Updike living in Georgetown among them—died last week at the age of 88.

Earlier this year Mitchell (below) spoke at the Deltona Regional Library about his photographs of famous writers, including Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, and Truman Capote.

Here’s the story by Richard Conn, which ran in The Daytona Beach News-Journal online. Above, as a tribute to his genius, is the photo he took of Updike.

He wasn’t included in a list of Top 25 Contemporary Writers of Faith, because the editors of Patheos—”Hosting the Conversation on Faith”—only included living writers. But death apparently is a technicality readers would rather not concern themselves with.

The editors amended their original list based on suggestions of what people of faith are reading NOW, which apparently is contemporary enough. Updike made the list for In the Beauty of the Lilies, Roger’s Version, and My Father’s Tears—though, of course, his entire oeuvre might have been included.

Here’s the link.

According to an NPR series on “Poverty in America: The Struggle to Get Ahead,” Reading, Pa. edged out Flint, Mich. as the nation’s poorest city.

Updike was born in the Reading hospital and wrote about the city in his Rabbit tetralogy, calling it Brewer.

The Society returns to Reading in October 2014 for the Third Biennial John Updike Society Conference at Alvernia University.

Here’s the link to the full article. Thanks to member Brian Duffy for calling it to our attention.