(This post was written by Elizabeth Penn, intern, European Reading Room)
In the 1930s and early 1940s, the Library of Congress acquired a collection of books from Israel Perlstein, a prominent dealer of rare books and antiques. These books were unique as they originally belonged to the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs. At the Library, it is known as the Russian Imperial Collection. Overall, it contains about 2,800 items that were part of the Romanovs&