The Rare Book Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of the William Paul Schenk Papers from his estate early in 2011. In addition to many of his own manuscripts, the William Schenk papers contain a treasure trove of articles, correspondence, and photographs concerning Carl Sandburg and his family. Schenk greatly admired the famous poet […]
Non Solus Blog
The Thirty-seconde of March
April 1, 2011
Just came upon something interesting in the vault: A 1752 sermon entitled: The Thirty-seconde of March / On the dangers of calendar reform / and touching upon the false method of rectifying the seate of Easter. With godly warnings to the Parliament that seekes to deprive good Christians of eleven dayes of life. A sermon. […]
German Christmas Songs (IUA15239)
December 20, 2010
A collection of German Christmas songs (call number IUA15239) from the library of Richard Aron passed through Quick and Clean Cataloging a few months ago. This Sammelband contains 38 pamphlets published between 1774 and 1828. Most of the pamphlets are only two to four leaves in length and contain the lyrics to German Christmas and […]
Manzanar Free Press (IUZ00262)
November 2, 2010
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 “Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas.” During World War II, over 120,000 persons of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry were then removed from these military areas and relocated to internment camps in the Western United States–most for the duration of […]
Dobell Catalogs (017.4 D65c and 017.4 D65ca)
October 11, 2010
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library recently discovered that we hold a complete set of the Dobell catalogs, which appear to have been owned by the Dobell family. On 16 July 1956, Gordon N. Ray purchased 22 volumes of the catalogs from Days Bookshop in England. These volumes are uniformly bound in three-quarters brown goat […]
Congratulations to our Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin!
August 11, 2010
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Illinois now has even more reason to be proud of being the home of William S. Merwin’s papers: on Thursday, July 1, it was announced that William S. Merwin would be named the next poet laureate of the United States. The duties of the Poet Laureate Consultant in […]
Cyprian Norwid’s copy of Dante’s Divina Commedia
August 5, 2010
It is with great excitement that we announce the discovery of an Italian copy of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia (Firenze: Felice le Monnier, 1844) bearing Cyprian Norwid’s ownership inscription and his presentation inscription to a Polish emigre in the United States. Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883) was a Polish poet, dramatist, painter, and sculptor. He belonged […]
The Gift of King Charles III of Spain to James Harris, later First Earl of Malmesbury
July 20, 2010
Juan de Iriarte y Cisneros (1702-1771) was able to complete only one substantial volume of his bibliography of Greek manuscripts in the Spanish Royal Library in Madrid. When curator Bruce Swann decided to transfer the Classics Library’s copy of Regiae bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci mss. (Madrid, 1769) to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, he […]
Collection of Danish plays uncovered
June 28, 2010
A collection of Danish plays from the 18th and 19th century has recently been cataloged. This collection of roughly 70 items includes translations of contemporary popular plays from France and Germany. The bulk of these items were found in the cataloging backlog section that our team is currently working through. The rest, which were in […]