Top of page

Category: Rare Book of the Month

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Rare Books: “A Child’s Garden of Verses”

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins. It coincides with the posting of additional illustrations from the Library’s 1895 edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” on the Library’s Pinterest site. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) spent his childhood in the cold and damp of Edinburgh, Scotland, his dedicated …

Posted in: Books, Rare Book of the Month

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Did Galileo Own the Library’s Copy of ‘The Starry Messenger’?

Posted by: Carla D. Hayden

Asking intriguing questions can be a great way to encourage research and creative thinking. The answer to this particular question was at first disappointing. Two experts, a historian and a rare book librarian, both said that although Galileo wrote “The Starry Messenger,” he did not himself own the copy of the book now in the …

Posted in: Books, Manuscripts, Rare Book of the Month