Special Collections’ newest small exhibit features the work of late 19th/early 20th century illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). Rackham’s art graced the pages of many beloved works of late Victorian and Edwardian literature, such as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and The Wind in the Willows. Arthur Rackham: His Art and Imagination features over a dozen …
In May of 1816, two of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s most famous poems were published in London. Christabel and Kubla Khan – both unfinished fragments – were originally written around 1797. Coleridge had abandoned both poems, but fellow poet Lord Byron convinced him to publish them. The two poems appeared with a third, The Pains of …
2016 kicks off a four-year commemoration of the life and works of siblings Charlotte (1816-1855), Branwell (1817-1848), Emily (1818-1848) and Anne Brontë (1820-1849). During the month of May, Special Collections will exhibit first editions of the Brontë sisters’ poems and novels. The exhibit will also examine how the Brontë family was memorialized in the 19th …
Just in time for National Poetry Month, come visit our latest lobby exhibit on former BYU professor and poet laureate, Leslie Norris. It features his manuscripts and examples of his published work.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Celebrate with a book of Irish literature! Special Collections owns many first editions of literary works by Irish writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, from prolific novelist Charles Lever to modernist provocateur James Joyce. Here are a few suggestions to get your celebration started, whatever your literary taste: Start traditionally …
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 …
“Finding Wonderland: 150 Years of Lewis Carroll’s Alice” is Special Collections’ latest small exhibit, on display in the reference area through the end of January. It features a facsimile of Lewis Carroll’s manuscript and Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations for the original edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well as the work of 2oth and …
Dec. 30 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of British author Rudyard Kipling, the first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. Born in India and educated in England, Kipling showed early brilliance as a writer of short fiction. His first works appeared while working as a journalist for English-language newspapers in …
What was the hot-ticket reading material for the holiday season in Britain 150 years ago? The Christmas number of All the Year Round, entitled “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions.” It first appeared on Dec. 7, 1865. All the Year Round was a weekly literary journal started by Charles Dickens in 1859. It featured the writing of many …