Top of page

Archive: August 2024 (3 Posts)

Photograph shows James Baldwin, an African American, male, LGBTQIA writer and activist, seated.

An Honest Man and a Good Writer: 100 Years of James Baldwin

Posted by: Amanda Zimmerman

Born in Harlem on August 2nd, 1924, novelist and essayist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) is regarded as one of America’s greatest writers. At the time of his death on December 1st, 1987, Baldwin was working with sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) of the Gehenna Press to publish a fine press edition of an unpublished work. Gypsy and Other Poems features six of Baldwin's poems that reveal an intimate, introspective side of the writer.

Printers mark showing a Griffin.

Sebastian Gryphius and the Gryphius Collection

Posted by: Marianna Stell

Learn about Sebastian Gryphius, one of the most celebrated printers of sixteenth century Lyon, and about the books printed by him which are held by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Gryphius printed Latin textbooks and works by humanist authors and was instrumental in divulging the ideas of the renaissance to Lyon and France.

Testament of Survival: An American Bible and the 1814 Burning of Washington

Posted by: Allison Buser

While the British military burned the federal properties of Washington during the War of 1812, some soldiers sought souvenirs to commemorate their conquest of the nascent U.S. capital. Seized by a British officer, one particular American bible in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division bears the marks of its dramatic removal, its captivity, and later its homecoming to the United States.