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, […]
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Larry McMurtry’s personal collection of H. G. Wells
June 8, 2016
Student Designs for a new Rare Book & Manuscript Library!
June 2, 2016
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, […]
A 12th-Century Charter
January 22, 2016
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
November 9, 2015
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
November 4, 2015
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
October 23, 2015
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 […]
Who Saw the Wright Brothers’ First Successful Flight?
September 4, 2015
When the Wright Brothers went to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to successfully test their “Flyer,” the first successful airplane, they did not drag behind them a train of reporters, public relations flacks, or the other impedimenta we associate with technological breakthroughs. There was too much uncertainty; there had been too much failure before. As it happened, […]
Reunited for the First Time Since 1879: Six Books and an Invoice
August 7, 2015
When private libraries like the Cavagna Collection–containing over 40,000 books and manuscripts–are purchased, one of the first questions that arises is how these owners and collectors acquired their books. A Pavia native, Cavagna purchased his books primarily from booksellers around northern Italy. The evidence we’ve encountered so far suggests that he turned and returned to […]
Charles Dickens: Journalist, Novelist, and – Actor?
July 29, 2015
Most know Charles Dickens as a great novelist, with a style so distinctive that it now bears his name. But Dickens fans might celebrate him for very different achievements, save for one bad cold. Drama and theater played an important role in Dickens’ life from an early age. As a small and somewhat sickly boy, […]
Suffragette City
July 20, 2015
Congress proposed the Nineteenth Amendment in June 1919. To commemorate this event, we are looking at a important book, Jailed for Freedom, by suffragist Doris Stevens. Born in 1892 in Nebraska, Doris Stevens attended Oberlin College and briefly worked as a social worker and teacher before joining the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). When the National […]