A special exhibition on Tennessee Williams will open in conjunction with the 2002 Oxford Conference for the Book, which is dedicated this year to the famous playwright from Mississippi. The exhibition, assembled by the University’s Department of Archives and Special Collections, will feature several cases devoted to Williams’s life and career. The exhibition will open on April 11 and continue through the end of the year.

Unique items on display include a signed copy of the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales Magazine, which contains Thomas Lanier Williams’s first published work, a short story, "The Vengeance of Nitocris"; a Williams poem printed in the 1932 University of Missouri yearbook; and the annotated typesetting draft for the screenplay of Baby Doll. Also in the exhibition will be several vintage movie posters based on Williams’s work and other paper ephemera.

A number of rare Tennessee Williams items are also included in Special Collections 1975- 2000: A Silver Anniversary Exhibition. Highlighting a quarter century of acquisitions, this exhibition includes literary rarities of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Larry Brown, and Richard Wright.

The Department of Archives and Special Collections is located on the third floor of the J. D. Williams Library. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, except for University holidays. For more information, call 662-915-7408.