His handwriting was so bad I often needed one of the expert scholars to decipher it.  I essentially learned through exposure, and realized how valuable studying the original manuscripts of authors can be.  Whitman, for example, wrote on scraps of paper (essentially like Post-Its), and then tacked them to a large wall and rearranged, crossed out, rewrote, and edited everything like that, eventually getting to a point where he was happy, upon which time he rewrote everything again in the final manuscript he sent to his publisher.  This was for Leaves of Grass.<p>UVA also has the papers of William Faulkner, so I learned quote a bit about him, too.  Additionally, four original copies of the Declaration of Independence.<p>No, I didn&#x27;t learn anything shocking, but I learned an awful lot about the history of the book, and archiving, and digitizing, and publishing.  Terry Belanger (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Terry_Belanger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Terry_Belanger</a>), a MacArthur Fellow, was my mentor.