Opulent Almanacs

                  It’s been a wonderfully colorful week here at the Illinois RBML: after Joan Friedman’s illuminating lecture on Owen Jones and color printing on Wednesday, we came across these exquisite chromolithographed title pages from Goffredo di Crollalanza’s series of almanacs: the “Almanach Héraldique et Drôlatique”, from 1883-1885. […]

Germania Rediviva

Goths, Angles, Saxons, Jutes—these are the tribes of ancient Germania, the so-called barbarians who migrated during late Antiquity, building the kingdoms that displaced Rome. The spate of museum exhibits and television shows is only the most recent expression our fascination with ancient Germania. Earlier historical periods likewise came under their spell. In this exhibit, we […]

Have I Got to Cook That?

The Frederick Joseph Wells Collection consists of letters written by the science-fiction author H.G. Wells to his family members, photographs of H.G. Wells, drawings by H.G. Wells, and other documents related to H.G. Wells. The collection was compiled by H.G. Wells’s older brother, Frederick Joseph Wells. The majority of the letters in the collection are from […]

Larry McMurtry’s personal collection of H. G. Wells

We’ve recently finished processing Items from the Larry McMurtry collection of H.G. Wells. The items in this collection formed a part of Larry McMurtry’s personal collection of H. G. Wells and includes some of H. G. Wells personal correspondence, publishers’ correspondence and records, items related to the production and marketing of the film Things to Come, and drawings, […]

Student Designs for a new Rare Book & Manuscript Library!

Graduate Architecture Students in Professor Vidar Lerum’s studio course took on the challenge of designing a new home for the magnificent collections of the University of Illinois’ Rare Book & Manuscript Library. With librarians and curators servings as their “clients,” and adhering strictly to their stated needs for special spaces to house, research, care for, […]

The Double Life of the Letter “U”

The letter “u” is a workhorse of the alphabet. It occurs so frequently that it will earn you only one point in Scrabble. Even so, it flies under the radar, escaping our notice. Now, texting threatens to elevate it to a pronoun. Have we underestimated this unassuming letter? The time has come for a closer […]

A 12th-Century Charter

This charter records a privilege granted to the city of Como, Italy, by the German king and Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V (1086-1125). Henry V is mostly known for his role in drawing up the Concordat of Worms, which brought the investiture controversy to a close. His life tends to pale next to that of […]

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library Invites Visiting Scholar Applications

The John “Bud” Velde Visiting Scholars Program The Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CALL FOR APPLICATIONS, 2016-17 Program Cycle The Rare Book & Manuscript Library annually awards two stipends of up to $3,000 to scholars and researchers, unaffiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who would like to spend […]

The Rule of Saint Benedict

This wonderful historiated initial comes from the opening of our copy of the La regle saint Benoit, a French translation of the Rule of Saint Benedict. The illustration shows Saint Benedict addressing four attentive nuns. The artist incorporates suggestive details that give the scene a liveliness that is surprising for so small a picture. The nun closest […]

Like an insect in amber

It is not unusual to run across insects in old books: flies and spiders get squashed in the margins, and paper-loving silverfish perish between the pages they’ve been dining on. However, it is out of the ordinary to find one embedded in a book’s actual paper, as RBML cataloger Linda Bial did recently! This unfortunate spider […]