Reeding Lessons loves libraries. We love libraries because they are filled from floor to ceiling with stories waiting to be discovered. Stories like when Henry Reed, upon being presented with a bottle of Mumms Extra Dry, once quipped, "Poor baby." Or that Reed had the seat of his trousers scorched by burning brandy at Louis MacNeice's Birmingham going-away party. Or his reprehensible behavior when in the company of the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

There are still secret stories waiting to be discovered. Reeding Lessons wants to share the love, and we're not afraid to beg. So we're issuing a challenge: help fill in the gaps in our research.

Are you a student, librarian, or just a library geek? Would you like to contribute to continuing scholarship on an overly-anthologized, under-appreciated poet? Want to own a rare piece of Reedsh? Then become a Reeding Lessons Guest Researcher!

Step 1. Visit your library! Track down and locate a primary or secondary source on Henry Reed (1914-1986).

Sources should be original (print, not Internet) journal or newspaper articles, book reviews, poems, encyclopedia entries, book chapters, or excerpts from biographies or other non-fiction. Anything written by Henry Reed, or that mentions Henry Reed. It can be several pages in length, or as short as a single sentence.

Here's a list of "most wanted" items, to get you started. I also collect Reed's appearances in anthologies.

2. Scan (or photocopy and scan) this source into a .pdf document, or image file (.jpg, etc.). Include the title page or table of contents, copyright page, and index entry (as appropriate).

This is important! Including the title and copyright pages makes your research verifiable, and reproducible. This is science, people!

3. E-mail the scan to , before 12:00 am EST, Sunday, April 1st.

For the price of a few photocopies and some footwork, the researcher who e-mails the best item before the deadline will receive, in return, a copy of Reed's The Auction Sale, published as a Greville Press pamphlet in 2006, with an introduction by Professor Jon Stallworthy. The pamphlet is worth £7.50 (about $14.75) and, obviously, you must be willing to provide us with a physical mailing address (free shipping to anywhere IRL!).

We only have one copy of the pamphlet to give away, so:

4. Only the guest researcher who turns up and sends in the most unexpected, colorful, unique, or fantastically interesting source item (as judged by Reeding Lessons) will receive a *free* copy of The Auction Sale.

5. All participants in the Library Challenge, however, will receive credit for their hard work on this blog, with a link to their website (if they would like), and our everlasting respect and undying gratitude.

6. Fine print: We're not sure of the precedent for a project like this, so Reeding Lessons reserves the right to make the rules up as we go along. All decisions will be final. Until we change our minds.

Also, We're not at all sure why we issued this challenge in first-person plural. It just sounded more official that way.

If you have comments, questions, or outrage, please feel free to comment below, or send us me an e-mail.