Special Collections has a small but significant collection of rare Japanese books and manuscripts, and we periodically add to it. One of our most recent acquisitions is a 1796 treatise on Western science, “Oranda tensetsu,” or Dutch Astronomy Explained. It is one of several books published by Japanese printmaker Shiba Kōkan which discuss European science …
Special Collections has recently acquired copies of several important 19th and early 20th century anthologies of American poetry and literary criticism. These are wonderful resources for students of American poetry, providing information about literary reception and canon formation in the 19th century as well as publishing the work of many long-forgotten poets of the period. …
Facsimiles of three famous illuminated medieval manuscripts have recently been added to Special Collections’ holdings. All three are associated with known artists and all are available for consultation in the reading room or in the classroom! Hours of Henry VIII This Book of Hours (pictured above) was illuminated in Tours, France by artist Jean Poyet …
Looking for new sources on topics in American literature? Here are a few of the latest additions to BYU’s comprehensive collections of authors Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. You will only find them in Special Collections! Christine Gerhardt, A Place for Humility: Whitman, Dickinson, and the Natural World. University of Iowa Press, 2014. Justin Martin, …
Two of Special Collections’ newest additions in the realm of rare literature are groundbreaking mystery novels, one British, the other American. Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (Victorian Collection PR 4809 .H87 M8 1887b) was the best-selling mystery novel of its day. Hume self-published the novel in 1886 while working as a law …
Some of the newest acquisitions to our Fine Press collection are … Christmas cards! Many fine press printers produce holiday greetings for private individuals, and Special Collections acquires these ephemeral pieces along with books, broadsides, and other output from the fine printers we collect. The following cards (both recently acquired) were printed for the Ruth …
One of the newest acquisitions in the History of Science collection is the first edition of French mathematician Oronce Finé’s Protomathesis (Paris, 1532), a compendium of astronomical and geographical knowledge. This book is important as a detailed summation of the field of astronomy in the decade before Nicolaus Copernicus published his heliocentric theory of the …
Just in time for your holiday reading spooktacular come these mashups from Special Collections literary holdings. Find these today in the library catalog: Little Women and Werewolves (2010) In the new tradition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Little Women and Werewolves reveals Louisa May Alcott’s classic as she originally wrote it! Robbie Burns, Witch …
Single-language and dual-language dictionaries were just as indispensable to writers and scholars of the Renaissance as they are today, though in the age of online dictionaries and Google Translate it may be harder to appreciate just how revolutionary printed reference books were in the late 15th century. Printing not only sped up the process of …
Special Collections has a small but significant collection of rare Japanese materials from the Tokugawa period. Some items are currently on display in the library’s Guns, Scrolls, and Swords exhibit, and others have been featured in past exhibits as well. On occasion, we have the chance to add to the collection. Here are the most …