Author returns to campus
Erik Larson returns to UD, where he found treasure in Messersmith papers
1:33 p.m., April 6, 2016--Author Erik Larson never intended to develop the character of George Messersmith for his 2012 critically acclaimed bestseller In the Garden of Beasts.
He was more interested in the story of William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor who hoped to use his stint as American ambassador to Germany to work on his own academic publication. Dodd, like the people who appointed him, assumed the position largely unaware of the historical turning point 1933 Berlin would become.
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Few in the world knew of the Nazi ascent to power. But one man did. George S. Messersmith served as head of the U.S. Consulate in Germany from 1930 to 1934.
In dispatch after dispatch to then-Secretary of State and future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Cordell Hull, Messersmith provides a detailed timeline of the incremental injustices that would eventually become unimaginable atrocities.
His papers are housed in the University of Delaware’s Morris Library and can be viewed for free on the library’s Special Collections site.
Larson, however, didn’t view them online.
He was in Newark to visit two good friends. A trip to the library, he thought, might just qualify it as a business trip. So he walked to the lower level, where the Messersmith collection is stored, not knowing what to expect.
A few minutes was all it took.
“I said, ‘Holy! This is a lot of great stuff.’”
He used plenty of it when writing In the Garden of Beasts, where Messersmith plays a fascinating supporting role. In the book’s footnotes, Larson explicitly credits the University of Delaware for containing “one of the most beautifully archived collections I’ve ever come across.”
Tonight, he will return to the University to speak on his newest book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania.
Larson’s presentation is part of the annual celebration dinner for members of the University of Delaware Library Associates. Founded in 1958, the group has worked to expand and enrich the research collections of the University of Delaware Library through gifts from members and funds raised by University of Delaware Library Associates programs.
Article by Artika Rangan Casini