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What Poet Changed Your Life?

Naomi Shihab Nye, Sometimes I Pretend: A Poem. Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2014. Handmade paper, illustration, printing by Peter and Donna Thomas. Free Library of Philadelphia, Print and Picture Collection. Photo by Shaun Hardrick. (Also pictured: silver egg cruet, also on view in Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art and History.) The poem: Sometimes I pretend I'm not me. I only work for me. This feels like a secret motor chirring inside my pocket. I think, she will be so glad when she sees the pages neatly written. She will be relieved someone sharpened pencils, folded clothes. The Thomases, or the Wandering Book Artists as they are sometimes called, printed Nye's poem onto a scroll with wood and metal type on paper handmade by Peter, illustrated with images stencilled by Donna. The beginning of the poem is printed in bright rainbow colors and varying fonts, evoking the playfulness of the opening line's a game of make-believe; by the end of the poem, the evenly sized capital letters in solid red suggest a more serious tone. The scroll is bound like a secret inside of a beautiful wooden box, trimmed with a yellow pencil to keep it from slipping it inside, and it can be guided in or out of the box by turning the wooden gears at the sides; in our display case, the scroll has been extended but folded over, so the visitor can only get a partial glimpse of the poet's private wish. The gear mechanism was partly inspired by a line of the poem, "secret motor chirring." The images of gears and motors evoke a kind of industrial labor that might seem at odds with the handcrafted natural materials and vibrant illustrations of the box, but just like the pencil-sharpening and clothes-folding mentioned in the poem, mechanical labor supports and makes art possible. When I look at this beautiful box and its half-hidden poem, I think about that long-ago day I spent with the poet at a museum, learning to balance seriousness and irreverence, work and play.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Sometimes I Pretend: A Poem. Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2014. Handmade paper, illustration, printing by Peter and Donna Thomas. Free Library of Philadelphia, Print and Picture Collection. Photo by Shaun Hardrick. (Also pictured: silver egg cruet, also on view in Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art and History.) April is National Poetry Month, so let's celebrate the poets who have changed your life or made a serious impact on your imagination. Don't be too quick to answer! Sometimes it seems that even voracious readers feel all or nothing about poetry, as if it's a room or a secret society and you're either in or you're out. But poetry, like inspiration, is all around: in the song lyrics that play on repeat in our minds, in the invocations at our most meaningful ceremonies, the inscriptions on monuments and in our favorite books. So whether you're an avid reader of poetry or not, tell us: what poet changed your life? Read the full article

#AmericanLiterature #Maps-CodexManuscripts-Incunabula-BookArts #OfTwoMinds

Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson: painters, partners, and paragons of art education

Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art & History showcases the creations of romantic couples who inspired, instructed, or even assisted one another in making art or knowledge. In anticipation of Women's History Month beginning tomorrow, we shine the spotlight on two remarkable women who were artists, partners, and educators in the Free Library's Print and Picture Collection, is by artist and former Woodmere Art Museum director Edith Emerson of her partner and mural muse Violet Oakley. [Edith Emerson (1888-1981), Violet Oakley, n.d. Pencil drawing. Free Library of Philadelphia Print and Picture Collection.] Read the full article

#of two minds #exhibitions #woman crush wednesday #womens history month #love in the library

From One Shakespeare Collector to Another: David Garrick and Dr. Rosenbach

18th-century acting superstar David Garrick has a birthday on February 19; he would have been 401. Though he may no longer be a household name, Garrick is partly responsible for contemporary culture’s reverence of Shakespeare, as well as for the genesis of the Rosenbach’s Shakespeare collection which visitors may encounter while exploring of Dr. Rosenbach’s library. Read the full article

#English Literature #Shakespeare #david garrick #william shakespeare

Burns Night at the Rosenbach

On January 25, 1759, the poet Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. The anniversary of his birth is celebrated all over the world with scotch, songs, and poems by the prolific writer. Robert Burns holds a special place in the Rosenbach: our collection houses some remarkable early editions (including a stunning Kilmarnock edition that belonged to Burns' patron, Mrs. Frances Dunlop), some personal items (such as a powder horn that belonged to Burns, now on view in our rare book library), and assorted letters and manuscript poems. This year, we were thrilled to open our doors on January 25 for readings, refreshments, and rousing renditions of traditional songs. Read the full article

#EnglishLiterature #robert burns #burns night

Celebrating History's Unsung Creative Couples

Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art and History features art, literature, and more created by romantic couples from the sixteenth century to the present. Some are well-known, like Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, but one of the great pleasures of this exhibition is the chance to explore the stories of couples whose lives aren't so well-known. Among these are Charles de Soussy Ricketts and Charles Shannon, two talented artists who fell in love in art school and spent most of their lives living and creating together.

Charles Haslewood Shannon and Charles Ricketts by George Charles Beresford. Photograph, October 1903. National Portrait Gallery. Read the full article

#exhibitions #Oscar Wilde #Of Two Minds #Charles Ricketts #Charles Shannon

Happy Birthday, James Joyce … and Ulysses!

Nearly 100 years ago today, on February 2, 1922, bookstore-maven-cum-publisher Sylvia Beach stood anxiously waiting on the platform at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris for the arrival of some very precious cargo on its way from Dijon: two copies of the first edition of James Joyce’s just-printed novel Ulysses. Joyce, ever superstitious, wanted desperately to have the book printed on this day—his 40th birthday. And so every February 2, literature nerds the world over celebrate not just the Irish author, but his masterwork as well. Read the full article

#EnglishLiterature #IrishLiterature #JamesJoyce'sUlysses

The lights dimmed, the music swelled, and the silver screen flickered to life. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the NOSFERATU screening. Proceeds from this event benefit the Rosenbach Fund, which helps us to create great programs, exhibitions, and tours. (at Macy's)

Ducks and Doubles in Wonderland

Friends of Lewis Carroll faced unceasing peril of being turned into animals and absorbed into Wonderland—as the fate of Carroll’s friend Robinson Duckworth will attest. Duckworth was a fellow at Oxford’s Trinity College while Lewis Carroll’s real world avatar, Charles Dodgson, was mathematics lecturer at Christ Church nearby. On the afternoon that Carroll invented the story of Alice’s famous adventures, Duckworth entered Wonderland in duck-form, immortalized as a character in Wonderland at the same time that the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church—Lorina, Edith, and Alice herself—also received Wonderland passports. Three books on the shelves at the Rosenbach tell the story of how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came before the world, and how its first hearers would be forever pulled into Carroll’s story.

Lewis Carroll. Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan, 1866. Inscribed to Robinson Duckworth. Collection of the Rosenbach, EL3 .D645a 866a. Above is an inscription in the 1866 first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that Carroll gave to Robinson Duckworth. The “voyage” Carroll refers to is the fateful trip Carroll and Duckworth took with the Liddell sisters along the Thames on July 4, 1862. In collector parlance, a “presentation copy” is a book given to someone significant in its author’s life—but the Duckworth copy of Alice takes this into another dimension, as it is not only inscribed to Carroll’s friend, but to a character in his book. Alice Pleasance Liddell was also a passenger on Dodgson and Duckworth’s Thames voyage, and famously entered Wonderland as the heroine of Carroll’s story. (One wonders how sisters Edith and Lorina felt about being relegated to the supporting roles of “Eaglet” and “Lory”). According to Duckworth, it was Alice herself who asked Carroll to record the story, and the first physical form it took was Carroll’s hand-lettered and personally illustrated gift to her, then titled Alice’s Adventures Underground. This manuscript proto-Alice—one of literature’s most sacred reliquaries—was briefly owned by Dr. Rosenbach, and is now enshrined at the British Library. Below you see a published facsimile from 1886, made from the original. Carroll’s handmade Christmas gift was copied and printed after being borrowed for that purpose from Alice—by then metamorphosed into a grown up Mrs. Hargreaves.

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886. EL3.D145al 866 MS Facsimile Lacking both the “Pig and Pepper” chapter and the “Mad Tea Party,” Alice’s Adventures Underground is the closest thing in Carroll’s oeuvre to the incomplete first printing of Hamlet—the stunted double of a much-loved classic. Much like Hamlet’s “bad quarto,” Alice’s Adventures Underground is presented as live theater in the shadow of its better-known and much-filmed twin—most recently in a successful immersive production below London’s Waterloo station! The copy of Underground pictured above is another gift to Robinson Duckworth. It lives on Dr. Rosenbach’s shelf, and is inscribed to “the Duck, from the Dodo,” a reference to how Carroll himself first entered Wonderland in the form of an officious extinct bird.

Lewis Carroll. Alice’s adventures under ground. Facsimile 2. London: Macmillan, 1886. EL3 .D645al 866. Alternate selves and parallel worlds recur in Carroll’s work from Wonderland to Looking Glass to his neglected late opus, Sylvie and Bruno. Given Carroll’s fondness for drawing friends down rabbit holes and creating fictional doppelgangers of them, it’s not surprising that themes of doubles and mirrored selves would permanently impact the identities of those who knew him. This occurs most poignantly in the case of the one passenger on the legendary Thames trip who became more famous than Carroll. The “real” Alice, Alice Pleasance Liddell—later Hargreaves—passed through all of life’s stages with a phantom self at her side, the immortal Alice she had inspired Carroll to create. Only one edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on Rosenbach shelves has a likeness of Alice on the spine, and fittingly, this is the one that contains the autograph, not of Carroll, but of Alice Hargreaves.

Lewis Carroll. Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1932. Signed by Alice Hargreaves. EL3 .D645a 932. Mrs. Hargreaves’ tidy handwriting graces this 1932 Alice printed by the Limited Editions Club—a press that specialized in small runs (usually 1,500) of classic and contemporary works. Limited Editions Club books were often signed by their authors, illustrators, and designers, but not by their muses or characters. Alice Hargreaves—muse and character both—signed copies of the Limited Editions Club Alice in the midst of the receptions, speeches, honorary degrees and barrages of flash-bulbs she endured during the transatlantic centenary celebrations of Dodgson/Carroll’s birth. In photographs of her at the time of her American tour, Mrs. Hargreaves seems to regard her involvement in Carroll’s immortal story with a queenly tolerance, fitting for someone who had lived a full life in the real world, and would reign forever in Wonderland. To discover more about Lewis Carroll’s muses, inspirations, and publications at the Rosenbach, have a look here, here, or here—but take care not to be spirited away to Wonderland forever! Read the full article

#EnglishLiterature

Happy birthday to Robert Burns, born #OTD in 1759! We'll toast to the poet with a glass of Scotch tonight during an evening of readings and music. The poet's personal effects, like this powder horn, became hot commodities in the 19th century. It's not too surprising that Dr. Rosenbach acquired a few as he collected Burnsiana; the Rosenbach founder was a great admirer of the Scottish poet. [Unknown artist, powder horn belonging to Robert Burns. Scotland, 1796. 1954.2048. Photo credit: Ryan Brandenberg.] (at The Rosenbach)

#otd

It's #NationalHandwritingDay--how fortuitous that we were just looking at some of the letters that will make an appearance on Friday's Lesbian and Gay Lives Hands-On Tour, including this green-inked, beautifully textured missive from Marlene Dietrich to Mercedes de Acosta, which closes with "I kiss your beautiful hands and your heart--Forever M." (at The Rosenbach)

#nationalhandwritingday

Unwrapping Poe's Mummy

When we think of Edgar Allan Poe, we think of his horror tales. His face is the icon of macabre fiction. And so when we see that he once wrote a tale about a mummy, we expect the full panoply of a monster story: Egyptian curses, the dead revivified, perhaps a monstrous beetle that devours the living. But Poe was not just a writer of scary stories. In fact, only about a third of his tales can be termed Horror. Another third were satires and humorous tales. That’s right, Edgar Allan Poe was a humorist, spinning tales to induce laughter, not chills. In Poe’s short story, “Some Words with a Mummy,” a doctor and his friend unwrap a mummy, (actually people in the 19th Century loved to throw “Mummy Unwrapping Parties") and discover his name is Allamistakeo (yes, the puns in Poe stories are usually this obvious). Then, they decide to zap the mummy with electricity to bring it to life. And it works! After some slapstick hijinks at resurrection, the men give the mummy some proper clothing, then they all sit down to cigars, brandy, and civilized conversation. Part of the satire in the plot and their discussion revolves around the hubris of modern humans in thinking their advances in scientific knowledge make them superior to past generations.

Edgar Allan Poe, "Some Words with a Mummy," in American Review Vol. 1 No. 4, April 1845. Collection of the Rosenbach, A 845a. Credit: Kelly & Massa photography. Read the full article

This gorgeous Wurlitzer was made in 1929--the same year bootleg copies of NOSFERATU hit U.S. shores--and designed to accompany silent film. You can hear it for yourself on January 31 for our one-night-only screening of NOSFERATU with organ accompaniment! https://rosenbach.org/events/nosferatu/ (at Macy's)

Romance at the Rosenbach

Love is in the library: over the holidays, two visitors got engaged while on a tour of the historic house. Admittedly, some of us were in on the plan. One of our artistic staff members created a library display case with a copy of the bride-to-be's favorite book, Jane Eyre, opened to the page with the famous line "Reader, I married him." One of our knowledgeable guides asked her to read aloud the label, which included some text that is decidedly not part of our collection. Then the groom-to-be popped the question. Reader, she said yes.

Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Chong, with permission from the pictured couple. Love, literature, and libraries: is there anything more romantic? We're warming up to the theme with a month of affectionate offerings, from love letters to loving couples. Read the full article

#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #OfTwoMinds

We posted this icy illustration for #librarywonderland last year, but polar exploration has been on our minds again as we celebrate #Frankenstein200. FRANKENSTEIN opens with the diary of an explorer in search of a navigable passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic; in Mary Shelley's time, interest in the Northwest Passage was heating up, as it were. But sailors had been seeking a route since the sixteenth century. The unfortunate adventurers depicted here sailed with a Dutch officer named Gerrit de Veer; his crew suffered bear attacks and worse for many months, but de Veer survived and published his account. [Tre Navigationi Fatte Dagli Olandesi e Zelandesi... Venice: Printed by Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1599. Collection of the Rosenbach, A 599t]. (at The Rosenbach)

#frankenstein200 #librarywonderland

Another January 17, another rebus in honor of Benjamin Franklin (born #OTD in 1709). This one has got some tough puzzles in it--we'll give you a moment to work it out. [Benjamin Franklin. The art of making money plenty, in every man’s pocket. New-York : Pub. & sold by S. Wood, [ca. 1815]. Collection of the Rosenbach.] Ready? "The whole hemisphere will shine brighter, and pleasure spring up in every corner of thy heart." We were thrown off by the brig ("ship-hter" didn't make sense) and the heart ("strawberry?" we wondered), but we're charmed by the apple-toting Eve in "every." #benjaminfranklin #enlightmentemoji (at The Rosenbach)

#benjaminfranklin #otd #enlightmentemoji

at The Rosenbach

For #LibraryWonderland Wednesday, here are some spinal snowflakes on the presentation copy of one of Charles Dickens' wildly popular holiday stories. #giltypleasures [Charles Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth. 21st ed. Presentation copy. London, 1846. Collection of the Rosenbach, EL3 .D548cr 841.] (at The Rosenbach)

#librarywonderland #giltypleasures

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