2024 was another busy year for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. As a way of reflecting on this past year and looking forward to the next, we are here sharing some new resources as well as past memories. Happy 2025!
At the end of the fifteenth century, simplified versions of medical charts featuring an image of the "Zodiac Man" began to appear in Books of Hours. The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division contains many examples of these printed editions, one of which uses a skeleton in place of the Zodiac Man.
Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1932 and observed first-hand the rise of the Nazis and the damage and terror inflicted on the famously tolerant city and its inhabitants. He drew from his journals that he kept from those years to write "Mr. Norris Changes Trains" (1935) and "Goodbye to Berlin" (1939), which would later be combined into an omnibus volume entitled "The Berlin Stories" (1945). Playful and powerful, Isherwood's depiction of Berlin captured the imagination of later artists, whose work is also represented in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964), pioneer in environmental awareness and protection, authored her landmark work, Silent Spring, in 1962. This Earth Day post remembers her legacy as an author who wrote to inspire wonder in her readers.
Written by American aviator Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) but compiled and arranged by her husband after her fatal flight, the copy of "Last Flight" in the National Woman's Party Library in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division has a special provenance linking Earhart to the women's suffrage movement.
This post explores the life and work of Chester Himes (1909-1984) and his friendship with fellow African American author Ralph Ellison (1914-1994), as evidenced by Himes' books in Ralph Ellison's personal library.
2023 was a memorable year for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. As a way of reflecting on this past year and looking forward to the next, we have highlighted Library resources that are now, or will soon become, available to the public. Happy 2024!
Is that mermaid holding a mirror? No, and yes. The lower border of the January calendar page from this fifteenth-century illuminated Book of Hours contains a Siren, who is holding a mirror. What is a Siren? Why it is in this Book of Hours? Learn more in this New Years post.
This post explores a set of mysterious manuscript volumes in the Harry Houdini Collection. These manuscripts were written by Frederick Hockley, noted participant in the British Occult Revival of the late 19th century, and they contain the results of his experiments with the art of crystal-gazing.