By Elissa B.G. Mullins Climb aboard the S.S. Cuba for a rare glimpse behind the iron curtain through the keen eyes and profusely detailed journals of a French physician, Dr. O. Ménard (Post-1650 MS 0896). In July 1932, the S.S. Cuba was privately chartered by a French medical society for a special tour of Scandinavia, […]
Non Solus Blog
Journal of a voyage to Russia during the Soviet famine
August 19, 2025
Isolarii at the RBML
August 6, 2025
By Molly Banwart Today we’re looking at two seminal printed isolarii, or island books, from the late 15th and mid-16th centuries. The isolarii genre can be thought of as an encyclopedia of islands containing maps along with text descriptions of significant history, maritime information, mythology, and an analysis of the physical geography of the land. […]
Livre de Prières : Tissé d’après les Enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle
July 23, 2025
By Molly Banwart and Caroline Szylowicz Have you ever seen a book made entirely of silk? One item getting a lot of reading room attention recently is this French Livre de Prières: Tissé d’après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle (242.802 H446l). This book was manufactured with the Jacquard process, which relied […]
Elizabeth Susanna Graham poems and drawings
July 1, 2025
By Elissa B.G. Mullins If seeking a little levity in lovely line and verse, look no further. Peek inside this slim volume of manuscript poems and drawings, bound in gilt-ornamented green straight-grain morocco… Past marbled end-papers like theater curtains, you’ll come to a hand-illustrated title page: “Poetry,” dated “MDCCCXV” [1815], showing two women in Greco-Roman […]
Havana customs house account book for 1825
June 15, 2025
By Elissa B.G. Mullins A recently cataloged manuscript offers a grim window into the 19th-century slave trade. The account book of the Havana customs house for January-April 1825 (Post-1650 MS 0878) records daily details of Cuba’s imports and exports, including the import of enslaved persons. I did not immediately register that the abbreviation “escl.” that […]
Epitaph for Colonel John Penruddock: Manuscript
May 12, 2025
By Elissa B.G. Mullins If you, dear readers, recall with interest our earlier blog post on the Eikōn basilikē of King Charles the First, we now invite you to turn your attention to a newly re-cataloged manuscript containing a belated epitaph (in both Latin and English) for one Colonel John Penruddock (Post-1650 MS 0824). The […]
Names Swallowed by the Cold: Revisiting the RBML’s Arctic Exploration Materials
May 9, 2025
By Elissa B.G. Mullins Twenty-one pieces of manuscript correspondence relating to Arctic and Antarctic exploration have recently been cataloged! These materials can now be accessed as Post-1650 MS 0840-0852. Many pieces of correspondence contain information of great scientific and historical significance, while others are only indirectly connected to polar exploration, such as Sir John Richardson’s […]
Literary Connections in Literary Collections
March 19, 2025
By Nicole Connell RBML holds the papers of many writers, including Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, and H.G. Wells. Not only are these writers notable in their own right, but they boasted a social network that included other prominent writers. So let’s have some fun and explore these relationships in our collections! If you would like […]
Hymni heroici tres
February 19, 2025
By Elissa B.G. Mullins Open a vellum binding, blind-stamped and splayed with age, to discover a rare edition of Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola’s Hymni heroici tres, printed in Leipzig in 1514 by Melchior Lotter (who, three years later, printed the first edition of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses). The library’s copy (Call Number: Q. 875.1 […]
Now Searchable: Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Collection
October 25, 2024
by Dana Miller The Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Collection is now searchable in our Manuscript Collections Database! Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. (born 1948) is an American letterpress printer, papermaker, educator, and social activist. He established the first iteration of his imprint, Idiot Press, in the 1980s, with several additional iterations in the years following: Kennedy […]