In 1846 Edward Lear published an illustrated collection of 72 limericks entitled A Book of Nonsense. The volume, which is referenced in our exhibit Wonderland Rules: Alice at 150 , helped popularize the limerick form and inspired a number of similar books by other people and organizations. One of these, The New Book of Nonsense, …
The books in the Rosenbach’s collection are fascinating for many different reasons, but this little gem has one of my favorite bindings. It is actually two separate texts bound together in what is known as a dos-a-dos binding. Dos-a-dos means “back to back” in French and that is exactly what this type of binding is. …
Most of us are probably familiar with Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But did you know that the title came from a nineteenth-century poem by the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar? It is from his poem “Sympathy,” published in the 1899 collection Lyrics of the Hearthside. Its final verse …
This past week the Rosenbach has sent objects on loan to exhibitions at two other institutions: one traveled northward to Princeton and the others headed south to Alexandria. The Princeton loan is one of our two Thomas Sully portraits of Rebecca Gratz (we lovingly refer to her as “Rebecca without the hat”). She is normally …
Today marks the 195th anniversary of the sinking of the whaleship Essex, which was famously “stove by a whale” on November 20, 1820. I’m a bit of a maritime history junkie, so I’ve made reference to the story before, but with a major movie about the wreck opening in December, it seemed that it could …
We’re delighted to announce that the Rosenbach has recently acquired a rare first edition (1818) of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, as well as first editions of Shelley’s novels Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), and Falkner (1837). These terrific additions to our collections of English Romantic …
Dr. Rosenbach’s book-dealing prowess not only earned him an extensive clientele, an amazing personal collection, and the chance to publish about his exploits, but his widespread fame also gave him a star turn as the victim in a 1930 murder mystery. The Yorkshire Moorland Mystery (a.k.a The Yorkshire Moorland Murder) by J.S. Fletcher revolves around …
Meet Bethany Chisholm, The Rosenbach’s manager of special events. Bethany has been in fundraising her entire working career. After growing up and attending school in the Boston area, she moved to Philadelphia. She began interning at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coordinating special events and their young professional group. As we know at The …
Hi there, Joyceans! This is Judy Guston, Curator and Director of Collections at the Rosenbach starting a new addition to Ulysses Every Day! This Bloomsday will be my 22nd at the Rosenbach! This year, from now through our virtual Bloomsday, my Collections teammates and I will be sharing with you some illustrated stories about the …
Meet Jobi Zink and her dog Bourbon! Jobi has been the registrar at The Rosenbach since 2014. What is a registrar you ask? “Well,” says Jobi, “much like a university registrar keeps all the files on all the students a museum registrar keeps all the files on all the museum’s objects.” Jobi studied art history …