I can’t believe it, but Bloomsday is a week from tomorrow! The entrance of Ulysses into the public domain in much of the world lends an especially festive air to the proceedings this year, while here at the Rosenbach we are celebrating our twentieth Bloomsday. Do you have your hat picked out? Do you know …
Next Tuesday evening, there will be a transit of Venus, visible beginning around 6 PM (at least for those of us here in Philly). A transit of Venus means that Venus will pass between the earth and the sun and will be visible as a black dot moving across the sun. These transits are rare, …
This year’s Bloomsday exhibition is here–it was slated to open next Wednesday, May 30, but we managed to get everything in place early. Below, you can see a couple of the photos I snapped during the installation. The theme this year is Who Owns Ulysses? Joyce and Copyright and it delves into the fascinating legal …
As I was stuck in traffic this week, a bright spot amid my frustration was hearing that NPR had picked Heart of A Samurai, a young adult novel about Manjiro, as their May selection for their “Backseat Book Club” for children. I haven’t read the novel, but I am excited that more young people will …
Photo courtesy of Michael O’Reilly Since Maurice Sendak’s death two days ago we’ve been seeing an outpouring of remembrances, as well as a lot of renewed interest in his work, both online and in our galleries. Everyone seems to be asking the same question: What is Sendak’s legacy? Everyone has a different way of answering …
One of the great things about working at the Rosenbach is getting to meet and work with great folks from other local museums. Last Friday night I volunteered to help the Mütter Museum (our closest museum neighbors) with a really neat event– Murder at the Mütter 2TM. Courtesy of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia …
A few weeks back I posted a bit about our largest collections object–the Rosenbach brothers’ house at 2010 Delancey. My last post covered some of the early history of the house, but much of the way the house looks now, at least in the interior, has to do with later renovations. One of the most …
Bram Stoker. Dracula. London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1897. EL3 .S874d 897 Although his most renowned literary creation was famously “un-dead,” Bram Stoker was as mortal as the rest of us and today marks the centennial of his death on April 20, 1912. Here is a link to his obituary, as printed in The Times …
If you saw our Superlative Showcase, you know that the Rosenbach brothers’ home at 2010 Delancey place is our largest collections object. But how much do you know about it? The 2000 block of Delancey was built in the early 1860s as a developers row, which explains the unified brick appearance of the street. It …
With Passover and Easter nigh upon us, here are a couple of holiday-related items from our collection. The two-volume Mahzor Minhag Roma, published by the Soncinos in 1485/1486, is the first printed Jewish prayerbook and includes the Passover haggadah. The haggadah section marks another first–it is illustrated with the earliest known printed illustration of a …