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Research Center Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room

Selected Special Collections

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has an outstanding collection of research material in nearly all eras and subjects, ranging from medieval manuscripts to contemporary artists’ books. You can explore a selection of these collections here. For specific question, please contact us directly via Ask-A-Librarian.

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Accademia Della Crusca Collection

Italian-language publications representing the best usage of Italian in the humanities and sciences.

The Academy's purpose was to bring scholars and experts in Italian linguistics and philology. It was founded in Florence in 1583 by Antonio Francesco Grazzin with the mission to maintain the "purity" of the original Italian language. In 1612 the Academy published the first edition of the Dictionary of the Italian Language, which also served as a model for subsequent dictionaries in French, Spanish, German and English. 1,134 titles are dispersed throughout the Rare Book and Special Collection Division. See Accademia della Crusca Collection for details.

African American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909.

The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909 presents 396 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1822 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington. This collection is fully digitized and is available with other topically related items in African American Perspectives

American Almanacs, Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries.

The earliest American almanacs in the Library of Congress have been brought together as a collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Represented are imprints from at least thirty-five states and the District of Columbia, including the only known copy of Kikinawadendamoiwemin, a Chippewa almanac for the year 1834 which is probably the first book printed in the state of Wisconsin. The collection is strongest in eighteenth and nineteenth century material and contains all the editions of Poor Richard's Almanac, issued after 1735 and many examples by Nathaniel Ames, Samuel Clough, Nathaniel Low, John Tulley, and Nathaniel Whittemore. Some almanacs have been annotated. There are 3,896 titles in the collection.

Supporting Resources

American Imprints: Books and pamphlets printed in the United States between 1640 and 1800, (16,990 titles).

Supporting Resources

Anarchism publications prepared for U. S. foreign-language communities.

In 1977 the Library acquired through exchange and purchase nearly 1,400 books, pamphlets, serial issues, and ephemeral items relating to the study of anarchy. These publications were printed between the 1850s and the 1970s primarily for the French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish-speaking communities within the United States. While touching upon many political and social issues, the collection focuses on the history and philosophy of anarchism and the lives and writings of its major proponents. Of particular interest are pamphlets documenting the beliefs and activities of local organizations and short-lived movements.

Supporting Resources

Susan B. Anthony Collection: Library and papers of Susan B. Anthony.

In 1903 Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), one of the founders of the woman suffrage movement in America, presented her personal library of feminist and antislavery literature to the Library of Congress. The collection contains inscribed volumes presented by admirers, the official reports of the national suffrage conventions, addresses made at congressional hearings after 1869, and files of reform periodicals such as the Women's Journal. In many of the 272 volumes Miss Anthony has written notes about the donor or author. Perhaps the outstanding feature of the library is Miss Anthony's thirty-three scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, programs, handbills, and memorabilia. The scrapbooks were begun at the suggestion of her father in 1855 and document changes in public opinion toward Miss Anthony and the suffrage movement.

Supporting Resources

Margaret Armstrong Collection: Artistic bindings, approximately 200 items.

Margaret Armstrong, (1867-1944) was an American graphic artist and author and a preeminent designer of decorated cloth publishers’ bindings from 1890 to 1913. Her stylized designs, stamped in bold, contrasting colors and enhanced with gold and silver leaf, have exceptional visual appeal. Armstrong developed her own distinctive lettering and was known for her groundbreaking integration of type and image. She designed for major authors, including the Brownings, George Du Maurier, Paul Dunbar, Washington Irving, Henry Thoreau, Henry Van Dyke, and John Greenleaf Whittier, often creating sets of complimentary covers that identified particular authors.

Between 1899 and 1913 Armstrong created covers for fourteen popular romance novels by Myrtle Reed and designed for other late nineteenth-century women writers. Margaret or her sister Helen Maitland Armstrong provided interior border designs for many of the books. As printed dust jackets displaced decorative bindings after 1910, Armstrong began a second career, compiling and illustrating her seminal handbook, Western Wildflowers, and later writing two biographies and three detective novels. The Library of Congress purchased a selection of her book bindings in 2008.

Supporting Resources

Anti-Authoritarian Children's Materials Collection: German and Swedish language anti-authoritarian children's materials, 1963-1992.

A collection of German and some Swedish language anti-authoritarian children's materials from the mid 1960s until the early 1990's, primarily in the 1970s consisting of books, picture books, comics and magazines for children as well as books, journals, brochures, pamphlets and other materials for adults related to counter-culture, sex education and alternative pedagogy of children. Includes some posters and two sound recordings and scattered issues of periodicals for adults and magazines for children, including an extensive run of Underground, das deutsche Schülermagazin.

Supporting Resources

Archive of French Publishing Prospectuses Collection: Nineteenth-century prospectuses from European publishing firms (chiefly from France and Belgium, 1830-1870), (1,000 items).

Prospectuses for monographs and serials, catalogs of publishers and booksellers, subscription solicitations for serials, and miscellaneous items issued chiefly in France and Belgium during the 19th century. Also includes materials from Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland. The prospectuses relate to publications in a variety of fields: natural history, science, technology, voyages and travel, literature, politics, economics, the arts, history, and philosophy. Prominent French publishers represented in the collection include Armand Colin, Dunod, Hachette, and Larousse; prominent British publishers include Bernard Quaritch and Elkin Mathews.

Supporting Resources

Armed Services Editions Collection: Archival set of paperbacks published for the American Armed Forces, 1943-1947.

The outstanding achievement of the Army Library Service during World War II was the publication and distribution of the Armed Services Editions. Guided by an organization of publishers, booksellers, authors, and librarians known as the Council on Books in Wartime, this publishing effort produced, from 1943-1947, over 122 million paperbacks for free distribution to U. S. servicemen. The Armed Services Editions were designed to appeal to a variety of reading tastes and included works ranging from bestsellers to poetry. Only 99 of the 1,324 titles published had previously been reprinted. Between 1943 and 1951 the Library received a complete set of Armed Services Editions, largely as gifts from the Council on Books in Wartime.

Supporting Resources

John James Audubon's "Birds of America" Collection: One set of unbound plates from "Birds of America" housed individually in mylar folders; one set of bound plates.

Certainly the greatest of American bird books, and possibly one of the finest book productions in the world, Audubon’s Birds of America owes much to its author’s determination to have his work reproduced by the best possible craftsmen, and to his insistence that his drawings be reproduced life-size, as he had drawn them.  These large volumes, often referred to as the “Elephant Folios,” are sized to accommodate Audubon’s depictions of eagles, the wild turkey, the flamingo, and the whooping crane.  To his professed regret, Audubon could find no American publisher willing to take on this complicated and expensive venture; he took his work to England, where he found both master engravers and over half of his subscribers, including George IV.

Supporting Resources

Paul Avrich Collection: American and European anarchist publications issued after 1900, (10,250 items).

Books, pamphlets, offprints, serials, manuscripts, correspondence, newspaper clippings, audio and video cassettes, microfilms, and miscellaneous ephemera concerning anarchism in the United States and Europe during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes works by Paul Avrich; published and unpublished materials relating to prominent anarchists such as Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Max Nettlau, Max Nomad, Rudolf Rocker, and Mollie Steimer; extensive records of the Libertarian Book Club from the period 1945-1985; and archival materials concerning Fraye Arbeṭer Shṭime, a Jewish anarchist newspaper published for 87 years until 1977, as well as papers of its last editor Ahrne Thorne. Also includes records of American anarchist colonies such as the Modern School in Stelton, New Jersey, administered by Alexis and Elizabeth Ferm; the Mohegan Colony in Crompond, New York, founded by Harry Kelly, and the Sunrise Cooperative Farm Community in Michigan.

In 1986 the prominent historian of anarchism Paul Avrich donated to the Library his extensive collection of books, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, and memorabilia relating to the movement. The collection is particularly rich in American and European publications issued after 1900, with a full range of important anarchist writers represented, such as Errico Malatesta, Mikhail Bakunin, Rudolf Rocker, Prince Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, and Emma Goldman. The Goldman material is a notable example of how the Avrich Collection deepens the Library's resources in this area. Though the Library owns most of Emma Goldman's major works, the Avrich Collection contains ephemeral pamphlets such as Love among the Free and Trotsky Protests Too Much, Japanese and French translations of her autobiography, and later revisions of such important books as the 1911 and 1917 editions of Anarchism and Other Essays, as well as correspondence from Goldman to friends after her 1919 deportation from the United States.

Supporting Resources

Charles Edward Banks Collection: American and English genealogical material, chiefly in manuscript notes and clippings, (55 items).

Manuscript materials from the Library of Charles E. Banks, dating from 1931 which are now located in the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Accompanied by printed reel guide. MicRR guide no.: 9 (with other items). See Banks Genealogical Collection [microform] for details.

John Davis Batchelder Collection: Books, manuscripts, and other material assembled by John Davis Bachelder.

During years of foreign study and travel, John Davis Batchelder, (1872-1958) collected books, manuscripts, bindings, prints, maps, and coins which he felt illustrated the history of Western culture. His collection, given to the Library in 1936, is housed for the most part in the Rare Book and Specials Collections Division. The 1,499 volumes include children's books, early America publications, incunabula, and such significant literary works as the 1599 quarto edition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and the first folio edition of his plays (1623). Many book and non-book items were acquired because of their connection with famous people.

Supporting Resources

Bible Collection: Early editions and rare issues of the Bible in numerous languages, (1,471 titles).

A collection of Bibles in 150 different languages spaning from the 15th to 20th century. Important works in the collection include a gift from the Charles H. Slama Library consisting of thirty-one books, three of which are incunabula, two 16th century English Bibles and assorted 16th century Bibles in Latin and Greek. Also included are a portfolio of original leaves from Bibles, and editions of Homer, Milton and Adam Smith.

Perhaps the most important book in the Slama donation to the Bible Collection is a four-volume Latin Bible printed in 1497 by Anton Koberger. This Bible is quite uncommon in its complete form, as found , which has the added interest of being in its original binding of blind-stamped calf over wooden boards. An abundance of manuscript leaves, among them a four-page eleventh-century fragment and a twenty-page fragment form circa 1400, are used as endpapers. The thirty-eight woodcuts in this Bible are reduced versions of those appearing in the 1481 Koberger Bible, the first illustrated book to come from that press.

Also see the Bible Collection Exhibit.

Big Little Book Collection: Popular children's books, mid-twentieth century.

The Big Little Book Collection contains a variety of children's books in special formats that were received through copyright deposit in the 1930s and 1940s. Most numerous are the "Big Little Books" and "Better Little Books" issued by the Whitman Publishing Company, a subsidiary of the Western Printing & Lithographing Company (now Western Publishing Company) of Racine, Wisconsin. Measuring 4 1/2 by 4 by 1 3/8 inches, the Big Little Book presents stories based on comic strips, movies, radio shows, and children's classics and typically matches each page of text with a full-page, black-and-white illustration. Among the 176 "Big Little Books" and 73 Better Little Books, the collection are volumes featuring Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Little Orphan Annie, Mickey Mouse, Tom Mix, and Tailspin Tommie. The collection, totaling 534 items, includes editions from other American series such as the "Big Big Books" and "Chubby Little Books" as well as a few foreign publications.

Supporting Resources

Katherine Golden Bitting Collection: Publications and manuscripts on gastronomy from the fifteenth through twentieth centuries.

Between 1939 and 1944 Dr. Arvill Wayne Bitting presented to the Library of Congress the 4,346-volume gastronomic collection assembled by his wife, Katherine Golden Bitting (1868-1937), food chemist for the Department of Agriculture and the American Canners Association and author of nearly fifty pamphlets and articles on food preservation and related topics. To facilitate her investigations, as the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress (1940) states, she collected "materials on the sources, preparation, and consumption of foods, their chemistry, baterriology, preservations, etc., from earliest times to the present day."

The Bitting Collection containing numerous English and American publications on food preparation from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a sampling of notable French, German, and Italian works. American regional cooking is well-documented. The treasure of the collection is a mid-fifteenth century Italian manuscript entitled "Libro de arte coquinaria" of Maestro Martino which was a source for the earliest printed cookbook, Platina's De Honesta Voluptate (ca. 1475). Leonard N. Beck discusses the manuscript in his article "Praise Is Due Bartolomeo Platine: A Note on the Librarian Author of the First Cookbook" in QJLC, V.32 July 1975, p. 238-253.

Supporting Resources

Bollingen Foundation Collection: Records and publications of the Bollingen Foundation, (621 titles).

The Bollingen Foundation was established in 1945 by Paul and Mary Conover Mellon to create a larger audience for Carl G. Jung's theories through the publication of his collected works in English translation. From this initial publishing venture grew the Bollingen Series, a distinguished series of publications on aesthetics, anthropology, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and comparative religion. With the transfer of the Bollingen Series to Princeton University Press in 1969, the foundation concluded its activities and presented its records to the Library of Congress four years later.

An archival set of books published by the Bollingen Foundation or with its financial support is kept in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Supporting Resources

Bookplate Collection: Bookplates designed by twentieth-century Russian artists, (130 bookplates).

Bookplates designed by twentieth-century Russian artists, (130 bookplates).

Includes 130 bookplates mounted on 19 mats in a solander case. The bookplates were created from 1970 to 1987 by various Soviet Russian artists, including: M.M. Verkholant︠s︡ev, G.A. Eremeev, A.I. Kolokolʹt︠s︡ev, B. Zabarokhin, A.I. Kalashnikov, V.A. Panidor, S.K. Ti︠u︡kanov, and A.V. Shershnev. They were made for various persons and institutions, including: E. Evtushenko.

Supporting Resources

Broadside Collection: Mostly single-sheet publications from Europe and the Americas (with the vast majority from the United States) dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.

The Printed Ephemera collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the collection comprises 28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history. The first release of the digitized Printed Ephemera Collection presented more than 7,000 items. This release presents more than 10,000 items. While the broadside format represents the bulk of the collection, there are a significant number of leaflets and some pamphlets. Rich in variety, the collection includes proclamations, advertisements, blank forms, programs, election tickets, catalogs, clippings, timetables, and menus. They capture the everyday activities of ordinary people who participated in the events of nation-building and experienced the growth of the nation from the American Revolution through the Industrial Revolution up to present day.

Visit Broadside digital collection

Broadside Song Collection: Nineteenth-century musical lyrics in English, (4,525 items).

Visit Broadside Song digital collection

Marian S. Carson Collection: Americana.

The Americana collection of Marian Sadtler Carson (1905-2004) spans the years 1656-1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1700 to 1876. The collection includes more than 10,000 historical letters and manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and drawings, books and pamphlets, maps, and printed ephemera from the colonial era through the 1876 centennial of the United States.

It is believed to be the most extensive existing private collection of early Americana. The collection includes such important and diverse historical treasures as unpublished papers of Revolutionary War figures and the Continental Congress; letters of several American presidents, including Thomas Jefferson; a manuscript account of the departure of the first Pony Express rider from St. Joseph, Mo.; and what may be the earliest photograph of a human face.

Many of the rare books and pamphlets in the collection pertain to the early Congresses of the United States, augmenting the Library's unparalleled collection of political pamphlets and imprints. The Carson Collection adds to the Library's holdings the first presidential campaign biography, John Beckley's Address to the people of the United States with an Epitome and vindication of the Public Life and Character of Thomas Jefferson, published in Philadelphia in 1800. The book was written to counter numerous attacks against Jefferson's character, which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets during the bitter election campaign.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division shares custodial responsibility for the collection with the Library's Geography and Map Division, Music Division, Prints and Photographs Division, and the Manuscript Division.

Supporting Resources:

Miguel de Cervantes Collection: Rare editions of Cervantes in eight different languages, the gift of Leonard Kebler, (over 400 volumes dispersed in the Division's collection).

Don Quixote is the work best represented in the Library's Cervantes collection. There are nearly 100 editions in the original Spanish and 135 editions in 26 other languages. Noteworthy items in this respect are the first editions in Spanish, English, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, Portugese and Swedish. Other works are presented by important and distinctive examples such as the first editions of Novelas Ejemplares in Italian and English; Persiles y Sigismunda in English and Italian; and Viage del Parnaso in Spanish.

Children's Book Collection: Children's books, eighteenth century to present.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division houses approximately 18,000 children's books dating from the early eighteenth century to the present. Particularly strong in American juvenile fiction, the collection contains numerous works by Jacob Abbot (creator of the "Rollo" series), William Taylor Adams ("Oliver Optic"), Louisa May Alcott, Mrs. G. R. Alden ("Pansy"), Horatio Alger, Jr., Rebecca Sophia Clark, Charles A. Fosdick ("Harry Castlemon"), Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Harriet Mulford Stone Lothrop (the Five Little Peppers series), and Susan Warner. Outstanding contemporary children's books, acquired largely through copyright deposit, are selected for the collection each year and preserved with dust jackets and unmarked title pages. Examples illustrating popular reading tastes are also chosen. Among the modern writers represented by first editions are Ludwig Bemelmans, James Daughterty, Meindert DeJong, William Pene Du Bois, Rachel Field, Robert McCloskey, E. B. White, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Earlier children's books include instructional texts, early nineteenth-century paperbound books, and rare American publications presented to the Library in 1941 by Frank J. Hogan of Washington, D. C--among them a copy of Goodrich's The Tales of Peter Parley About America (Boston: 1827), two late eighteenth-century copies of Cock Robin's Death and Funeral, and ten New England Primers, six of them printed before 1800.

Children's books are also found in other special collections in the Division such as the Batchelder, Hersholt, and Kipling collections.

Richard L. Coe Theatre Programs Collection: American theaters and some foreign productions published from the early 1900's to the late 1970's.

Programs and playbills from American theaters and some foreign productions published from the early 1900s to the late 1970s, many with the collector's annotations, (approximately 5,000 items).

Richard Livingston Coe (1914‑1995), born in New York, NY was a theater and cinema critic for The Washington Post for more than fifty years. Coe was considered a unique critic, who expressed more of the positive rather than the negative in his support for actors.

One of the more notable contributions to Washington theatre was Coe's early efforts, and editorial participation to establish The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He is also credited for being a major voice in the effort to end racial discrimination of African Americans attending The National Theatre (Washington, D.C.), prior to the civil rights movement in the United States.

Coe was a close friend of Washington native and actress, Helen Hayes, "First Lady of the American Theatre", and was contacted by a group of individuals seeking to secure her participation in establishing The Helen Hayes Awards, also in Washington, D.C. Coe received the Critic of the Year award by the Directors Guild of America in 1963, and is an inductee in The College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

Background of the collection

Collection consists of approximately5,000 programs and playbills from American theaters and some foreign productions published from the early 1900s to the late 1970s, many with the collector's annotations. LC acquired the collection in the early 1980s.  Items are arranged alphabetically by title of production.

The following theaters are particularly well represented:
Washington, D.C.: Arena Stage, Ford's Theater, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Theater, New Gayety Theater, and the Shubert Theater.
Maryland: The Olney Theatre in Maryland.
New York City: Belasco Theater, Ethel Barrymore Theater, Guild Theater, Henry Miller's Theater, and the New York Shakespeare Festival as well as many off-Broadway venues.

Also contains programs from England and France, press releases, newspaper clippings, miscellaneous announcements, and typewritten and handwritten notes.

See American Theatre Programs of the Twentieth Century for more details.

Also see: The Richard L. Coe Early Scrapbook Finding Aid. (PDF, 212 KB)

Confederate States of America Collection: Publications issued in the South during the Civil War. (1,812 titles).

The Confederate State of America Collection brings together publications selected from the Library's general collections and books received from such sources as the Rebel Archives of the War Department. The 1,812-volume collection is particularly rich in documents issued by the individual state governments and the congress, departments, and offices of the Confederate States of America. A list covering most of these official publications was compiled by Hugh A. Morrison entitled, Society of America. The collection also contains Confederate almanacs, textbooks, sermons, and works of history, literature, military science, and politics and provides a comprehensive survey of book production in the South during the Civil War.

Also see the blog post: Waste Not, Want Not, A view on the hardships for the Confederacy during the Civil War and a related collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana: Publications, manuscripts, prints, and other material relating to Abraham Lincoln.

Confederate States of America Collection; Confederate Songs: Southern ballads about the Civil War, (158 broadsides).

For details see: Library of Congress intermission features.1989-03-03, Songs of the Civil War [sound recording].

Congressional Speech Collection: Pamphlets of Speeches delivered by members of Congress, 1825-1940, (3,750 speeches).

The printed texts of 3,570 speeches delivered by members of Congress between 1825-1940 are preserved in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The majority of these individually published pamphlets date from the last six decades of the nineteenth century. While many of the post-Civil War speeches were printed in other sources, the full text of earlier examples survive largely through the pamphlet copies.

Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection: Broadsides and other documents related to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the ratification of the new Constitution, and the creation of the Bill of Rights.

The Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection (21 titles) dates from 1786 to 1789 and includes documents relating to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, extracts of proceedings of state assemblies and conventions relating to the ratification of the Constitution, and several essays on ratification.

Most of the items in the collections are composed of a single sheet, meeting the classic definition of a broadside. Some items, however, range in length to twenty-eight pages. All of these broadsides, many of which were acquired in 1867 from Peter Force, are in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, with the exception of one broadside, which is in the Manuscript Division.

Continental Congress Broadside Collection: Broadsides and other documents pertaining to the work of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War and Confederation periods.

The Continental Congress Broadside Collection, consisting of 256 titles, includes material relating to the work of Congress, dating from 1774 to 1788. Items are predominantly extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, committee reports, proclamations, treaties, and other congressional proceedings. These broadsides provide a significant supplement to the Journals of the Continental Congress. Some of the broadsides trace the evolution of congressional measures at specific stages of consideration and differ significantly from the modified resolutions finally adopted by Congress. Some items contain manuscript annotations not recorded elsewhere that offer insight into the delicate process of creating consensus. In many cases, multiple copies bearing manuscript annotations are available to compare and contrast. Not every major topic considered by Congress is represented by this collection; the bulk of the material dates from 1781 to 1788.

Most of the items in the collection are composed of a single sheet, meeting the classic definition of a broadside. Some items, however, range in length to 28 pages. All of these broadsides, many of which were acquired in 1867 from Peter Force--historian, collector, and compiler of American Archives--are in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, with the exception of one broadside, which is in the Manuscript Division.

Howard Dearstyne Collection: Printed material transferred from the Dearstyne Papers in the Manuscript Division, (432 items).

Howard Dearstyne, (1903-1979) was an architect and writer. He was the only American graduate of the Bauhaus, and was immensely affected by its teachings and concepts, especially those of its last master, Mies van der Rohe. Dearstyne published on a wide array of subjects, including the architecture of colonial Virginia--especially Williamsburg--modern art, architectural design and city planning, design in nature, art photography and the Bauhaus.

Also see the Manuscript Division for the Howard Dearstyne Papers, 1911-1988.

Dell Paperback Collection: Archival set of Dell paperbacks, (6,501 titles).

In 1976, through the interest of Helen Meyer, the chairperson of the board of Dell Publishing Company, Inc., a virtually complete set of Dell paperbacks was presented to the Library by Western Publishing Company, the Wisconsin-based firm that has handled production and printing of Dell paperbacks since the first issues of the Dell Books series in 1943. In forming this archival collection, Western Publishing Company tried to document major changes in cover design resulting from marketing strategy, the release of a movie adaptation, and fluctuations in price and in many cases retained successive reissues of a single publication. The four copies of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five issued under number 8029, for example, exhibit three markedly different covers. Though approximately 90 percent of the books are reprints of titles previously issued in hard cover, the collection includes the Dell First Editions series which was begun in 1953 and features works by George Sumner Albee, George C. Appell, Jack Finney, and Margaret Mead.

  • Dime Novel Collection: Popular paperback fiction, nineteenth century, (40,000 titles).

Popular paperback fiction, nineteenth century, (approximately 40,000 titles).

In 1860 Irwin P. Beadle & Company became the first American publisher to issue paperback fiction in a series at the fixed price of ten cents a volume. The first dime novels were largely Indian and pioneer tales that were highly moralistic in spirit. In the 1870s detective adventures, society romances, and rags-to-riches stories were introduced and soon the term dime novel was popularly applied to any sensational, blood-and-thunder novel issued in pamphlet form. Through copyright deposit the Library of Congress has accumulated a dime novel collection of nearly 40,000 titles, from 280 different series. The prolific publishing houses of Beadle & Adams, Frank Tousey, and Street & Smith are well represented. The collection also contains serially published songbooks, jokebooks, and handbooks and issues of the popular reprint libraries that specialized in the unauthorized editions of foreign novels and stories before the passage of the International Copyright At in 1891. There is a particularly extensive run of the Seaside Library, the series founded by George Munro in 1877.

See Dime novels from the Rare Book collections of the Library of Congress for information pertaining to microfilm of this collection.

Charles Dickens Collection: First editions of Charles Dickens' works included in the Leonard Kebler gift, (dispersed in the Division's collection).

First editions of many important Dickens works; including serial publications. Include David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby, Master Humphrey's Clock, The Old Curiosity Shop, Baraby Rudge, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Oliver Twist, Sketches by Boz, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, among others

See. The Quarterly Journal of Current Acquitistions. Vol. 4, No.3 (May 1947) external link, pp. 95-102 for details.

Larry Dingman Collection: Documents the rise of American Western fiction and the cowboy novel.

The Dingman Western Collection was acquired by the Division in 2012. Larry Dingman, owner of the Dinkytown Antiquarian Book Store in Minneapolis, was known as the “King of Western Fiction.” Over several decades he amassed an important collection that documented the origins and rise of the literature of the American West. It covers the genre from its earliest manifestation in explorers’ journals, letters, and diaries, to the present day in all its diverse representations and subgenres. The collection consists of about six thousand hardcover western fiction novels, four hundred paperback western fiction novels, and about one hundred reference works. It also contains numerous anthologies of Western short stories and poetry, many of which were compiled by famous Western writers.

In 1860, with the birth of the Dime Novel, Americans were able to purchase a wealth of popular fiction at a fixed, inexpensive price. The stories were patriotic, often nationalistic tales of encounters between Native Americans and settlers. Many times, the tales were fictionalized stories based on real people such as Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid. By the 1890s, Dime Novels and their younger siblings, the Pulp Magazines were being devoured by the American public. The bold color covers depicting scenes of courage and bloodshed appealed to a mostly adolescent audience, though sales were not limited to this group. Pulp magazines eventually overtook the dime novels and retained their popularity well into the 1950s. The Dingman Western Collection contains a colorful selection of these beautifully illustrated magazines which touch upon nearly all the aspects of Western literature that have become so familiar to us all. 

In 1902, Owen Wister published what is considered to be the first “real” Western, The Virginian. This novel exposed the genre to a wider, more sophisticated audience, and established classic features of the Western genre (like the six-shooter showdown) that would endure for decades to come. From Owen Wister and Zane Gray in the early 20th century, to Sherman Alexie and Leslie Marmon Silko in the 20th, the Dingman Western Collection shows how really remarkably varied this body of literature is, and how important it is to American history and identity.

Also see: The Pulp Fiction Collection

Lester Douglas Collection: Printed material designed and donated by Lester Douglas, (98 items).

Douglas was an American book designer whose meticulous craftsmanship illustrated the effectiveness of many of his innovations and experiments in typography and design. The collection includes books and other graphic works which Douglas designed and includes various drafts and works in progress from conception through to completion. Organized by individual folders for all his important books, the collection illustrates how his works as they progressed. Frequently they contain original drawings, trial title pages, and proofs of various kinds.

For details see The Lester Douglas Collection of Books and Other Graphic Works. To browse a listing of titles, type: Lester Douglas Collection (Library of Congress) into the Library of Congress online catalog.

Early Bulgarian Imprint Collection: Bulgarian-language publications, nineteenth century.

The early Bulgarian Imprint Collection, purchased by the Library of Congress in 1949 and housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, contains copies of some of the earliest books printed in the modern Bulgarian language. Because printing presses were prohibited within Bulgaria by the Turks before the country achieved national autonomy in 1878, these books were printed chiefly in Constantinople, Vienna, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Budapest. The approximately 600 "pre-liberation" books in the collection include copies of 150 religious books, 50 grammars and readers, 35 histories, 30 patriotic works, 33 translations, and 20 calendars. Approximately 40 percent of the Bulgarian-language publications produced between 1806 and 1877 are represented. Of particular note is the 1806 edition of Krakow, the collection of 96 sermons prepared by Bishop Sofroniǐ of Vrasta, which was the first book to be published in modern Bulgarian. Two annotated copies of the standard bibliography Opis na starite pechatani bǔlgarski knigi by Valeriǐ Pgorelov serves as the finding aid to the Collection.

Early Copyright Records Collection: U. S. copyright registers and accession records, 1790-1870, (615 titles, 44,032 title pages).

A congressional act signed into law on July 8, 1870, authorized by the Librarian of Congress "to perform all acts and duties required by the law touching copyrights and stipulated that all copyright records and deposits be transferred to the Library of Congress. Before 1870, authors and publishers registered their claims to statutory copyright with the clerks of the U. S. District Court for the jurisdiction in which they resided. The 615 volumes of early records in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division consists largely of the District Court registers from the years 1790 to 1870. Although varying in completeness, the record books often contain indexes by claimant or claimant and title and, particularly after January 1, 1803, include specimens of commercial labels and prints that were submitted for copyright registration. The collection also contains records of the Department of State (17960-1842), the federal body that until the mid-nineteenth century was responsible for deposit copies received as legal evidence. From the Patent Office, which took over the copyright activities of the Department of State in 1859, there are records compiled before August 1870. Other documents include the accession registers of the Library of Congress listing the deposit copies secured for government library use during the mid-nineteenth century. The records are available on microfilm in the Copyright Office. One of the most interesting features of the collection for the bibliographer is the group of 44, 032 title pages (1790-1870) which were deposited by authors and publishers as evidence of intention to publish. Some title pages document works that were substantially altered before publication or were never printed.

Digitized Materials

Early Copyright Records Collection, 1790 to 1870

Ediciones Vigía Collection: Cuban book art, 1985, (156 titles).

The lantern is the logo of Ediciones Vigía, a collective of book artists in Matanzas, Cuba, which produces books of both high literary and artistic value. The press began in 1985 and takes its name from its location in the Plaza de la Vigía, or Watchtower Square.  Artists and authors, translators and poets make up this collective. Prominent members include Jorge Luis Borges, Dulce María Loynaz, and Gabriel García Márquez. The books are made with an inexpensive paper called bagasse, which is made from sugar cane. It is brown and looks something like the paper used for grocery store bags. The ephemeral nature of the books and banners is part of their appeal and part of the challenge to those interested in collecting them. The smaller books have cords of yarn or twine, in the tradition of literatura del cordel, the practice of hanging small handmade books from clotheslines in public squares.

Eistophos Science Club Archive: Records of the Washington based organization for the promotion of women in the science, 1909-1940s.

Founded in 1893 to bring together for their encouragement and improvement, women interested in scientific study, the Eistophos Science Club was initially an auxilliary of the National Science Club and published it's papers in the proceedings of the Chicago World's Fair. Eistophos is Greek for "towards the light."

The Library of Congress holds member papers that date from the 1940’s and organizational records date from 1909.

Supporting Resources

Harrison Elliott Collection: Paper specimens, personal papers and research material relating to the history of papermaking, (4,500 specimens and 5,800 secondary sources).

Harrison G. Elliott (1879-1954), probably the most prominent producer of handmade paper of America during the early twentieth century, began his study of paper while employed by the International Paper Company. In 1925 he joined the Japan Paper Company, a New York importing firm which distributed fine handmade papers from 15 European and Asian Countries. As advertising and direct mail promotion manager, Elliott designed and commissioned paper specimens and continued to write numerous articles on the history of papermaking. In 1954 Elliott donated to the Library of Congress the study collection which had had formed over a 40 year period. The collection includes twentieth-century paper specimens and sample books as well as trade journals, photographs, trade correspondence, and other secondary materials relating to the history and manufacture of paper. Of special interest is a sample collection of 300 early American papers and the correspondence and memorabilia of Dard Hunter, an authority on the history of paper and a personal friend of Elliott's. The collection contains approximately 4,500 specimens and fifty-eight hundred secondary sources.

See Paper Specimens, Personal Papers, and Research Material Relating to the History of Papermaking for details.

Ralph Ellison Library: The personal library of Ralph Ellison, (1914-1994).

Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) was born in Oklahoma City and studied at Tuskegee Institute in 1933-36. During the Depression he participated in the New York City Writers' Project under the Works Progress Administration. He served with the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1943 to 1945 and married Fanny McConnell in 1946. During a long and distinguished literary career he taught at the following universities and colleges: Bard (1958-61), Chicago (1961), Rutgers (1962-64), Yale (1966), and New York University (1970-79), as well as Columbia, Fisk, Antioch, Princeton and Bennington. He served as the Library of Congress' Honorary Consultant in American Letters from 1966 to 1972.

Although Ellison published a number of short stories and numerous essays, including the collections Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986), much of his reputation rests on the novel Invisible Man. Published in 1952, this novel became the pioneer work of fiction for the genre of African American literature. It won the National Book Award in 1953 and can be credited with stimulating a vital strain of ethnic fiction, drama and poetry in the United States that has flourished since. Ellison's seminal novel portrays the inner realities of a black youth as he moves from the South to the North and then underground. It is considered a major achievement in both American and world literature.

See the Manuscript Division's Ralph Ellison Collection.

Also see the finding aid: the Ralph Ellison Collection, (1937-2010) [View Finding aid] [PDF:2.21 MB] 355 pages

English Literature Collection: Selected Literature from the Bertram Dobell Collection, (1,600 titles).

See the Catalogue of Books Printed for Private Circulation. London, Published by Bertram Dobell, 1906.

George Fabyan Collection: Early editions of works of seventeenth-century English literature, publications relating to cryptography, (1,550 titles).

George Fabyan (1867-1936), a member of Chicago Stock Exchange and founder of Riverbank Laboratories in Geneva, Illinois, was an accomplished cryptographer. During World War I he trained army intelligence officers in deciphering codes, winning the French Legion of Honor for his efforts. One of his areas of specialty was the Shakespeare-Bacon authorship controversy, and he published writings on principles of Baconian ciphers and their application in sixteenth and seventeenth-century books. The Cryptographer's research collection was received by the Library of Congress in 1940 through his bequest. The Fabyan Collection incorporates the Francis Bacon material assembled by John Dane of Boston and includes 33 distinct editions of Bacon's works published between 1597 and 1640. In addition to many volumes of seventeenth-century English literature, the collections contains early cryptographic texts such as Johannes Triteness' Polygraphiae Libri Sex, present in the first edition (1518) and seven subsequent printings. The collection numbers approximately 1,550 volumes.

Charles Feinberg-Whitman Collection: Early editions of Walt Whitman's works, (488 titles).

Papers and photographs of Walt Whitman, early editions of his writings, and secondary research material

The Feinberg-Whitman Collection is probably is the largest and most important group of materials relating to American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) ever assembled. In building this collection, Charles E. Feinberg noted in 1958 in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America that he "tried to acquire all available letters, postcards, checks, bills and documents, primarily to reconstruct Whitman's daily life and creative activity." Personal papers form the core of the collection--more than one thousand of Whitman's letters (about twenty-eight hundred are known to exist), approximately two thousand letters received by him, and more than one thousand manuscripts, ranging from an annotated clipping to a commonplace book (March 1876-May 1889) of nearly four hundred pages.

Also in the collection are photocopies of many Whitman manuscripts held by public repositories and of a large selection of those in private hands. Among the printed items are many volumes from Whitman's publications, including several copies of Leaves of Grass from 1855 to 1891, many of them inscribed or signed, and page and galley proofs of Specimen Days (1882-82); early critical and biographical treatments; and works of more recent scholarship. The collection also has numerous photographs and pictorial materials relating to Whitman's life and work and personal items such as the poet's walking stick, watch, and pen.

Mr. Feinberg, a retired Detroit business executive, was actively involved with the quarterly Walt Whitman Review and preserved correspondence relating to each issue, manuscript material pertaining to several Whitman publications, and documentation of the Whitman exhibits drawn from the collection.

A portion of the 20,000-item collection is described in the catalog of the exhibition held at the Detroit Public Library. A finding aid of papers is available in the Manuscript Division. The Library's extensive resources for the study of Walt Whitman include additional manuscript material in the Manuscript Division and a collection of early editions of Whitman's writings kept in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Supporting Resources

Herman Finkelstein Collection: Twentieth-century American literature, (300 titles).

Herman Finkelstein, a copyright lawyer and long time friend of the Library, donated his 20th century American literature collection consisting of runs of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, among others. In immaculate condition, these first editions include their original dust jackets.

Peter Force Library: Early American imprints and incunabula.

The holdings of Americana in the Library of Congress owes much of their strength to the collecting zeal of Peter Force (1790-1868). In the course of preparing his "Documentary History of the American Revolution," a compilation better known today as American Archives, this Washington publisher and politician assembled what was probably the largest private collection of printed and manuscript sources on American history in the United States. The Peter Force Library was purchased by act of Congress in 1867. In one stroke, the Library of Congress established its first major collections of eighteenth-century American newspapers, incunabula, early American imprints, manuscripts, and rare maps and atlases. Although no complete inventory survives, many of the approximately 22,500 Force volumes are recorded without source designation in the Catalogue of Books added to the Library of Congress from December 1, 1866 to December 1, 1867.

Incunabula, pre-1801 American imprints, and other rare publications from the Force Library have been absorbed into the collections of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The Division holdings include important compilations of pamphlets that were assembled by such collectors as William Duane, Ebenezer Hazard, Jacob Bailey Moore, Israel Thorndike, and Oliver Wolcott. It is estimated that over 8,000 of the approximately 40,000 pamphlets purchased from Force were printed before 1800.

Benjamin Franklin Collection: Papers and publications of Benjamin Franklin, (850 titles).

In 1882, the U.S. government purchased a portion of the papers Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) had bequeathed to his grandson William Temple Franklin (1790-1823). The collection represents the material taken to London by William Franklin to prepare his three volume work, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London: 1817-1818), and acquired in 1851 by Henry Stevens, an American book dealer in London. At the time of purchase the books and pamphlets in the collection were sent to the Library of Congress. Approximately 200 items from the Benjamin Franklin Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division can be traced to the Stevens purchase and are described in Henry Stevens' Benjamin Franklin's Life and Writings: A Biographical Essay on the Stevens' Collection of Books and Manuscripts Relating to Doctor Franklin.

The collection embraces 850 volumes that were written, printed, edited, or published by Franklin. Notable items include numerous early editions and translations of the Autobiography, Baroness Le Despencer's annotated copy of the Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer (London: 1773) and Franklin edited, one of the four known surviving copies of A Vindication of the New-North-Church in Boston (Boston: 1720) which was printed during Franklin's apprenticeship at his brother's shop, and the first edition of Franklin's Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity (London: 1725). Also of relevant interest are the few volumes once owned by Franklin that were purchased by Thomas Jefferson and acquired by the Library of Congress as part of the Thomas Jefferson Library.

Franklin Book Program Collection: Archival set of Franklin Program publications of American books translated into Middle Eastern and Asian languages, (3,980 titles in remote storage).

An Archival set of Franklin Program publications of American books translated into foreign languages. The Franklin Book Programs, 1952 to 1978. For 26 years, Franklin assisted developing countries in the creation, production, distribution, and use of books and other educational materials. Its efforts were based on the premise that through wider and improved education, underdeveloped nations could better utilize their human resources to help eliminate hunger, poverty, overpopulation, and economic paralysis.

Supporting Resources

Sigmund Freud Collection: Early editions of Freud's writings, (187 titles).

In 1975, to augment of Library's collection of Sigmund Freud manuscripts, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division began collecting first editions of Freud's works in German and English and later editions containing textual revisions by the author. 100 titles have been assembled already including an offprint of the early publication Über Coca (Wein: 1885); a presentation copy of Freud's first book, Zur Auffassung der Aphasien (Leipzing und Wien: F. Deuticke, 1891); and the first edition of Die Traumdeutung (Leipzig und Wien: F. Deuticke, 1900), a work which has come to epitomize Freud's contribution to psychiatry. Also available are more than 50 books from Freud's library, virtually all of which bear an inscription to Freud, his signature, or some other indication of ownership.

Supporting Resources

Fine Arts Press of Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. (Approximately 75 items).

The Rare Book Division has collected about half the products of this private press. See the Bibliography of the Grabhorn Press for details.

Grenfell Press Archive Collection, 1979-1992. Chronicles the book production, publicity, and business transactions associated with the Grenfell Press.

The Grenfell Press Archive, which chronicles the book production, publicity, and business transactions associated with the Grenfell Press, has been arranged broadly into three categories: correspondence and typescripts, material relating to the production of individual works published by the Grenfell Press, and material relating to miscellaneous publications designed (but not published) by the press. The section comprising correspondence and typescripts relates to general business matters of the press; correspondence relating specifically to the production of an individual work is grouped with the production materials for that work. These production materials have been arranged in chronological order by publication date of the item to which they relate and sub-arranged by type; for example, correspondence, followed by typescripts and paste-ups, material relating to illustration and binding, etc. The original 1993 purchase also includes several published items that were lacking from the Rare Book Collection's almost complete holdings of Grenfell Press titles; these items have been cataloged separately (a source note has been added to the cataloging record to identify them) and housed with the Grenfell Press Collection. Also, in order to connect the material in the archive generally to the resulting publications housed in the Grenfell Press Collection, the record number for each publication is noted in parentheses in this finding aid. An index of names (authors and artists) and titles of publications has also been provided, but it should be noted that the section comprising correspondence and typescripts has not been indexed.

Also see the Finding Aid to the Grenfell Press Archive Collection.

Edward Gorey Collection: The works and ephemera of Edward Gorey, (802 items).

Edward Gorey, (1925-2000) was an American author and illustrator. His works were sometimes humorous and often dark and ominous. He was heavily influenced by Victorian and Edwardian themes.

The collection includes 467 books, 89 periodicals, 92 posters and theatre-related materials, 147 items of ephemera and 7 works of art. There are also 25 reference documents. The impact of this gift on the Library’s holdings is substantial as the Gorey Collection offers a unique collection of works located in one facility which will further research into Gorey’s work.

Supporting Resources

Frederic W. Goudy Collection: Personal library, papers, and publications of type designer Frederic Goudy, (2,499 items).

American type designer Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947) began experimenting with layout and printing while working as a bookkeeper in Chicago in the 1890s. He created a total of 124 type designs, executing many from drawing to casting, and operated the Village Press with his wife Bertha from 1903 to 1939. The Goudy Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division was purchased from Goudy himself in 1944 and consists largely of material that escaped a disastrous workshop fire in 1939. The collection includes Goudy's personal library on typography and numerous examples of fine printing (approximately 1890-1944), particularly from private American Presses. The output of the Village Press is documented by over 150 items ranging from dummies and broadsides to finished books. The Division copy of Melbert B. Carry's A Bibliography of the Village Press (New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, 1938. 205 p. Z232.G68C3) has been annotated to indicate collection holdings. In addition, the collection contains photographs of Goudy and his wife and drawings, rubbings, proofs, and posters illustrative of his commercial design work on The Inland Printer and for the Curtis Publishing Company, the Peerless Motor Car Company, and other clients. In 1975 a group of manuscripts was added to the original purchase, bringing the total number of manuscript items in the collection to 3,169. The acquisition includes correspondence largely from the years 1935 to 1945, papers relating to Goudy's A Half-Century of Type Design and Typography, 1985-1945 (1946), and notes and galley proofs for an unpublished book by Paul Bennett entitled "Goudy: The Man and His Work." Howard Coggeshall, Richard Ellis, and Mitchell Kennerley are among the correspondents. Many of the 1,791 volumes and 708 pamphlets in the Goudy Collections are represented in author/title and shelf-list files. Also available is a register (PDF, 2.6 MB) describing non-book materials and an inventory of the 1944 purchase.  

Victor Hammer Collection: The archives of the typographer, painter, and sculptor, (over 50 archival boxes).

This gift consists of materials relating to the artistic career of Victor Karl Hammer (1882-1967) in Europe and the United States after his emigration from Austria in 1939. Victor Hammer was a printer, typographer, painter, and sculptor, who also designed a chapel, built a printing press, and created the often-used American Uncial typeface.  This collection contains correspondence, mezzotints, prints, engravings, photographs, catalogs, and publications created between 1920 and 1999.  The Victor Hammer Papers are a resource for the for the study of the craft of printing, as well as for research in illustration and graphic arts, and for the exploration of ideas found in the correspondence between Hammer and his contemporaries. The documents relating to the career of Victor Hammer as a painter are especially significant.  This collection reflects the variety of Hammer’s interests, the originality of his concepts, and the breadth of his important personal American and European contacts.  

Supporting Resources

Hawaiian Imprint Collection: Hawaiian publications, nineteenth century, (353 volumes).

Among the volumes originally assigned to the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room when it was established in 1927 was a group of Hawaiian publications selected from the Library's general collections. The 353 books and pamphlets forming the Hawaiian Imprint Collection consist largely of nineteenth-century government documents, school books, and religious texts and include some of the earliest works printed in Oahu. From the missionary press of Elisha Loomis, the Islands' first printer, are copies of a 16 page anthology of word lists and readings in the Hawaiian language produced in September 1822 and a four-page primer captioned KA BE-A-BA (1824). Roger J. Trienens describes the two texts in Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States.

Supporting Resources

Henry Harisse Collection: Publications, papers, and maps pertaining to the early exploration of America, (414 items).

Perhaps best known for Bibliotheca Americana Vetusissima, a description of over three hundred writings on America published between 1492 and 1551, Henry Harrisse (1829-1910) wrote extensively on Christopher and Ferdinand Columbus, John and Sebastian Cabot, and the early voyages of American exploration. Through his bequest, the Library of Congress acquired in 1915 his personal copies of his publications, complete with marginal comments and interleaved notes. In addition to over two hundred volumes, the collection preserves correspondence pertaining to Harrisse's research, an original letter by Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, and a manuscript (ca. 1533) describing a voyage along the northern coast of South America. See: The finding aid for the Henry Harrisse Collection (PDF, 2.0 MB)

Jean Hersholt Collections: Early editions of Hans Christian Andersen's writings and his papers; first editions of the writings of Hugh Walpole and Sinclair Lewis and related papers, (963 items).

In the early 1950s Mr. and Mrs. Jean Hersholt presented to the Library their collection of Anderseniana, probably the most comprehensive collection in America of first editions, manuscripts, letters, presentation copies, and pictorial material relating to Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). The Hersholt Collection, formed by the collectors over a 30 year period, chronicles Andersen's publications beginning with his first book, Ungdoms-forsøg (Youthful Attempts), which was issued in Copenhagen in 1822 under the pseudonym William Christian Walter. Among the first editions in the collection are the six pamphlets published by C. A. Reitsel of Copenhagen between 1835 and 1842 with the title, Eventyr, fortalte for børn (Fairy Tales Told for Children). These contain the earliest printings of nineteen of the fairy tales, among them "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "Thumbelina." The collection also includes manuscripts of several fairy tales, Andersen's correspondence (1868-74) with his American publisher Horace E. Scudder, volumes inscribed by Andersen, early translations, significant posthumous editions, and works about Andersen.

To a lesser degree, Jean Hersholt collected letters, literary manuscripts and first editions of the writings of two of his friends, Sir Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) and Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951). Walpole is represented by 60 inscribed publications and holograph manuscripts of The Duchess of Wrexe, The Captives, and Wintersmoon. 28 of the 30 first editions of Sinclair Lewis's works in the collection are inscribed to Hersholt. Of particular interest is Lewis's personal copy of his 1930 Nobel Prize acceptance speech with his numerous revisions.

Hersholt, who was knighted by King Christian X of Denmark in 1946 for his war relief work, also assembled a small collection of Danish underground publications from World War II. The four collections contain a total of 963 items.

Martin F. Herz Gift: World War II propaganda ephemera, (2 scrapbooks).

Two leather-bound volumes of English-language leaflets are alternately descriptions of the good treatment given deserters and efforts to turn the British and American soldiers against one another. The predominant political theme is not the praise of the National Socialist regime but rather the "Bolshevik menace" to Europe. The Herz Collection, assembled by Martin Florian Herz (1917-1983) joins a 6,700 piece collection of the propaganda of all the participants in World War II transferred from the old Office of War Information.

Supporting Resources

  • Related Collections:
    • World War II Propaganda Collection: Pamphlets, broadsides, leaflets, manuscript and mimeographed materials, photographs, posters, and small artifacts distributed by various countries.

Frank J. Hogan Collection: Instructional texts, early nineteenth-century paperbound books, and rare juvenile American publications, (86 titles).

In 1941 Frank J. Hogan presented 86 rare pieces of juvenilia to the Library. Included in the gift was 1 of 3 known copies of Samuel G. Goodrich's The Tales of Peter Parley about America (Boston, 1827), the first native production which accented entertainment in a child's book as strongly as it did instruction. The Hogan gift also included 10 New England primers, the earliest of which is the very rare Providence edition of 1775, which contains the well-known childhood prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep," and the only known copies of the Boston primer of 1790. Another rarity in the Hogan gift was the earliest American edition of Cock Robin's Death and Funeral (Boston, ca. 1780).

Oliver Wendell Holmes: Book and print collection of the Holmes family, (12,126 items).

The book and print collection of Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935), received through his bequest in 1935, represents the combined libraries of several generations of the Holmes family. In addition to the hundreds of works on jurisprudence, constitutional law, philosophy, history, economics, political science, education, oriental art, science and bibliography assembled by Justice Holmes, the collection contains the books of Holmes' great-grandfather, Judge Charles Jackson; and his paternal grandfather, the Rev. Abiel Holmes, an early collector of Americana. Possibly the most outstanding feature, however, is the American literature collected by Justice Holmes' father, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), author of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Noteworthy representation volumes inscribed by James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson and rare nineteenth century publications, such as Illustrations of the Athenaeum Gallery of Paintings (1830) and the New York edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1886) bound with sheets of the suppressed English edition of the previous year. Approximately 700 volumes are in this collection.

Also see the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Room Finding Aid. (PDF, 352 KB)

Harry Houdini Collection: Publications, scrapbooks, and other material relating to spiritualism and magic, (10,355 items).

Harry Houdini (1874-1926), master magician and escape artist, wrote in A Magician Among the Sprits, (1924) that he had "accumulated one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489." In 1927, through Houdini's bequest, the Library received 3,988 volumes from his collection. While strongest in nineteenth and twentieth century publications on spiritualism- Houdini doubted "if any one in the world has so complete a library on modern Spiritualism: - the Houdini Collection contains a number of magic books inscribed or annotated by well-known magicians. Leonard N. Beck. discusses significant items in "Things Magical in the Collections of the Rare Book Division (PDF, 1.01 MB)," QJLC, v. 31, October 1974, p. 208-234. Also in the collection are prints, playbills, printed ephemera, periodicals, and many volumes of pamphlets on such topics as card tricks, mediums, hypnotism, handcuff escape methods, and chalk-talking. Of special note are over one hundred unannotated scrapbooks containing theatre notices and news clippings on subjects of personal interest. Houdini's theatrical collection was sold after his death to Messmore Kendall and later donated to the University of Texas.

Supporting Resources

House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) Collection: Pamphlets collected by HUAC, many of which the committee deemed "un-American." (4,000 pamphlets).

In 1982 Congress transferred to the Library the pamphlet files of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which consisted of some 4,000 items covering a wide range of topics: labor, communism, fascism, and neocolonialism were addressed by major figures in American communism and socialism. The publications in the collection are most extensive for the study of the American left. Complementing the HUAC materials is the Radical Pamphlet Collection, which is especially strong in materials on American communism, socialism, and anarchism from 1879 to 1980. There are essays, as well as correspondence from Goldman to friends after her 1919 deportation from the United States.

Supporting Resources

Incunabula Collection: Books printed between 1455 and 1501, (3,797 titles).

Also see like collections from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: The Otto Vollbehr Collection.

Washington Irving's Works: Rare editions of Washington Irving's works donated by Leonard Kebler, (dispersed in the division's collection).

Leonard Kebler donated fine copies of almost all the first editions of Irving's works published during his lifetime, a number of the original parts of writings which appeared serially, several interesting Irving manuscripts, and some of his secondary and posthumous publications. Most of the volumes are attractively covered by morocco slip-cases.

Noteworthy among the Kebler gift:

  • Early items: Salmagundi; or, the Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and Others, a series of sketches published irregularly in twenty pamphlet numbers, the first dated Saturday, January 24, 1807, and the last Monday, January 25, 1808.
  • Spanish themed works: The first American and English edition of A Chronicle of the Conquest of the Granada, 1831 as well as Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus and The Alhambra, 1832.
  • Western narratives including, The Crayon Miscellany, published in 1835 in their original cloth with white paper labels intact as well as the first edition of Astoria, The Rocky Mountains: or Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West, 1837
  • Biographical works including The Biography of James Lawrence, Esq., 1813, The Biography and Poetical Remains of the Late Margaret Davidson, 1841, Oliver Goldsmith, 1849, The Lives of Mahomet and His Successors, 1850 as well as The Life of George Washington, 1855-1859
  • Also of note is a five page autograph letter dated August 15, 1850 addressed to Henry Brevoort, Jr.

See: The Leonard Kebler Gift of Washington Irving First Editions external link for details

Henry James Collection: Early editions of James' writings, (132 titles).

In 1922, through the bequest of Mrs. Clarence W. Jones of Brookline, Massachusetts, the Library received a collection devoted to the writings of the American novelist, Henry James (1843-1916). Around this nucleus, the Library formed the Henry James Collection, adding books selected from the general collections and proof pages of several James novels were deposited for copyright protection. The James Collection contains first English and American editions of James' writing, significant later editions of books he revised, publications to which James contributed prefaces, stories, or essays, and critical studies by James scholars. One of the rarest items in the collection is a dramatization of Daisy Miller that was privately printed in 1882. There are 132 items in this collection.

Janus Press Collection: Archival materials relating to book production by Claire Van Vliet at the Janus Press, (1,000 items).

Claire Van Vliet, book artist, typographer and founder of Janus Press has donated her collections as well as archival material to the Library of Congress.

The collection is organized by individual books of the press and for each book there exist drawings, proofs, layouts, and designs. The Janus Press Collection is an outstanding example of the division's strengths in the area of fine printing.

Thomas Jefferson Collection: Thomas Jefferson book collection, (2,375 titles).

The book collections of the Library of Congress were reestablished, after their destruction in 1814, by the purchase of the private library of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). At the time of the purchase, Jefferson's collection contained 6,487 volumes in the fields of politics, history, science, law literature, fine arts, and philosophy and was recognized as one of the finest private libraries in the United States. While several members of Congress object that the collection "was too philosophical, had too many books in foreign languages, was too costly, and was too large for the wants of Congress," as Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford wrote many years later, the purchase was authorized on January 26, 1815, for the sum of $23,950. The Jefferson Library forms the nucleus around which the present collections of the Library of Congress have been assembled. For nearly a century the subject arrangement that Jefferson developed from Sir Francis Bacon's division of knowledge was used to organize the Library of Congress book collection. Jefferson's statement, "There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer," is still the guiding principle for Library acquisitions.

While many of the Jefferson books were lost in the Library fire of 1851, the remaining volumes have been assembled as a unit in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Many books bear Jefferson's ownership markings as well as the original Library of Congress bookplates and classification. The contents of the entire 1815 purchase were reconstructed by E. Millicent Sowerby and described in a five volume set which is now made available digitally. (See links below.) Additionally, see Thomas Jefferson's Library: A Catalog with the Entries in His Own Order. This catalog reconstructs Jefferson's Library in his own order.

Supporting Resources

Juvenile Collection: Children's books dating from the early eighteenth century to the present, (18,200 items).

As a result of the federal copyright regulations, the Library of Congress assembled an immense collection of American children's books. From these holdings the Rare Book and Special Collection Division has brought together on its shelves approximately 15,000 volumes of particular interest. V. Valta Parma, first curator of rare books (1927-1939) can be credited with pulling together this collection from selections in the general collections. Though the overwhelming majority of books in the collection originated in America, there are distinguished British and continental books and American editions of works of Foreign authors as well.

See the alphabetical and chronological card files for materials cataloged through 1973 and supplementary card files for materials cataloged between 1974 and 1982 available in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Item-level records will be found in the LC online database for materials in this colletion cataloged after 1982. Chiefly in English. Includes works in French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Forms part of Juvenile Collection (Library of Congress). See http://lccn.loc.gov/92253277 for details.

Rudyard Kipling Collections: Early editions of Rudyard Kipling's writings; related papers and research materials, (5,089 items).

Four complementary collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division richly document the life and works of the British author, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). The William Montelle Carpenter Collection, presented to the Library by his widow, Mrs. Lucile Russell Carpenter in 1941, contains autograph manuscripts of Kipling's stories and poems, original letters, drawings, corrected galley proofs, photographs, auction catalogs, books about Kipling, pamphlets, periodicals, and an unusually large collection of early printed editions. Among the manuscripts is the earliest known draft of "Mowgli's Brothers," the first story of The Jungle Book, which Kipling inscribed to Susan Bishop. The collection also includes such items of associational interest as a copy of Euclid's Elements which Kipling annotated while studying at the United Services College at Westward Ho, North Devon, and a set of dessert plates on which Kipling painted fruit and wrote verse. The Carpenters based their biographical sketch, Rudyard Kipling, a Friendly Profile, on material in their 1,675 item collection. Some material is described in William Montelle Carpenter's A Few Significant and Important Kipling Items! The Library also offers some black and white images from this collection as captured by the Prints and Photographs Division.

The Kipling collection of Rear Adm. Lloyd H. Chandler, given to the Library in 1937 and 1938, is known through his publication A Summary of the Work of Rudyard Kipling, Including Items Ascribed to Him, which was published in 1942. Chandler secured texts of 846 prose and 1,100 verse pieces written or attributed to Kipling and annotated them in preparation of a special edition of Kipling's works. He located items, particularly from Kipling's years as a journalist in India, that had not been collected previously. There is a total of 476 volumes in the two collections as well as a typescript collection index which includes published Kipling editions, periodicals containing Kipling works and pamphlets and a file of correspondence.

The H. Dunscombe Colt Kipling Collection of some 2,500 items was given by Mrs. H. Dunscombe Colt to the Library in 1984 and 1987. It contains printed editions, variants, periodicals, books about Kipling, books Kipling owned, a few photographs and drawings, manuscripts, letters, clippings and realia. Photocopies of 450 letters in this collection were given to the Kipling archive at the University of Sussex, UK by Mrs. Colt in 1994. The collection also includes unique items such as the copy of Kim that stopped a bullet and saved the life of a French soldier in World War I and Kipling’s tobacco bowl.

There are another 500 items to be found in the Kipling Collection that are various Kipling editions, transfers from the Library existing general collection, copyright deposits and later acquisitions of Kipling materials for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. This collection includes galley proofs submitted for copyright registration, early editions and later published materials. There are some Kipling materials that are presently being acquired and added to the Collection either by purchase, donation or transfer.

Supporting Resources

Jay I. Kislak Collection: Rare books, maps, manuscripts, historic documents, artifacts and works of art related to early American History. (over 3,000 items).

The unique collection encompasses more than three thousand rare books, maps, manuscripts, historic documents, artifacts, and works of art related to early American history and the cultures of Florida, the Caribbean, and Mesoamerica. It is considered among the finest collections of its kind in the world, one that brings together material that is of equal interest to scholars and the general public.

Supporting Resources

Hans P. and Hanni Kraus Collection: Early books, manuscripts, maps, and memorabilia related to the explorations of Sir Francis Drake, 60 items).

Primary and secondary materials on Sir Francis Drake.

Sir Francis Drake, English explorer and naval strategist, circumnavigated the earth from 1577-1580. During these travels, Drake visited the Caribbean and the Pacific claiming a portion of California for Queen Elizabeth and waging battles on the Spanish. This collection comprises important primary and secondary materials accumulated about Drake’s voyages throughout the then Spanish territory of the Americas. Texts are in English, Latin, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and French.

This collection of Drake items is the second major gift that Mr. and Mrs. Kraus made to the Library. In 1970 they donated 162 manuscripts relating to the history and culture of Spanish America in the colonial period (1492-1819), which contain a wide range of information both about Spanish colonial history and the territories included in the present-day United States. These materials are available for use by scholars in the Library's Manuscript Division. The Drake collection, assembled in only twelve years, complements the earlier gift with detailed information on important aspects of Spanish colonial history in the Americas. It also sheds new light on the consequences for Spain of Drake's raids on Spanish trade ships and on settlements in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The combination of the other rich Library collections from this period and the resources of the neighboring Folger Shakespeare Library make Washington a preeminent center for the study of the Elizabethan era [1558-1603].

Supporting Resources

Francis Longe Collection: Published theatrical works in English, 1607-1812, (331 titles).

The Francis Longe Collection, purchased by the Library in 1908, contains early editions of theatrical works published in English between 1607 and 1812. Assembled by the Longe family of Norfolk, England, the collection includes original plays, theatrical adaptations, and translations credited to over 600 playwrights. Includes original plays, theatrical adaptations, and translations credited to over 600 playwrights, and approximately 400 librettos. The Longe Collections is particularly rich in the works of lesser known seventeenth century dramatists.

See Francis Longe Collection of English plays for more details.

M & S Collection: Twentieth-century radical publications, (10,000 items).

Periodicals, pamphlets, broadsides, miscellaneous ephemera, and books documenting the activities of American religious, political, and social extremist groups from 1934 to 1981, with the bulk of the material published between 1950 and 1981. Includes material issued by organizations of the radical right on the subjects of anti-communism, anti-semitism, anti-socialism, Christian ethics, fascism, states rights, and white supremacy. Also includes material distributed by various left-wing organizations during the 1960's and 1970's relating to the antinuclear movement, anti-imperialism, civil rights, gay and women's rights, and the Black Power movement.

These materials chronicle the propagandizing, fund raising, theorizing, and other activities of radical groups. The greatest strength is in materials relating to the American radical right during the twentieth century. The holdings especially document the religious right's involvement with nationalism, anti-communism, anti-humanism, anti-Semitism, and the movement for media decency. Various religious groups such as the Unification Church, Church of Scientology, and the Church of God International are described in part in some of the materials. To the extreme right within the religious movements represented are advocates of Identity theology, with its concurrent anti-Semitism and Holocaust revisionism, anti-communism, survivalism, and nationalism. Secular anti-communists and survivalists, neofascists, opponents of fluoridation of the water supply, and those distrustful of the United Nations are all among the groups chronicled.

Supporting Resources

James Madison Pamphlet Collection: 238 Pamphlets and broadsides relating to James Madison, (6 portfolios).

The James Madison Pamphlets Collection is the personal collection of this founding father of the United States. Often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution” and the “Father of the Bill of Rights” these pamphlets reflect the world-view of this fourth president of the United States and form a unique and important piece of American history.

Supporting Resources

Manuscript Plays Collection: American play typescripts submitted for copyright deposit in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, (3,062 typescripts).

See digitized works in the online presentation of: English-Language Playscripts Collection. From the thousands of playscripts submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office at Library of Congress during 1870-1920, and now housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, 257 have been selected. These unpublished manuscripts include vaudeville comedy sketches, monologues, musical revue, spectacles, and other genres.

Supporting Resources

The Rouben Mamoulian Collection: A collection of theater, film and concert programs for performances in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, London, England and other locations.

A collection of theater, film and concert programs for performances in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, London, England and other locations. Also includes individual issues of film, theatre or entertainment journals, presentation copies and ephemera. Many items include annotations by Rouben Mamoulian. Includes presentation copy of "The History of the Theater" by Hannelore Marek inscribed by Helen C. Newman and inscribed copy in Russian of motion picture program "Liberation" to Mamoulian from Yuri Ozerov.

Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987) was an was an Armenian American film and theatre director who interacted with major figures in the arts and entertainment of the twentieth century. He is known for his theatrical interpretations and innovative use of camera movement and sound. Mamoulian’s stylized scenes created a poetic look to his films and abandoned ordinary realism. He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America and a David di Donatello Luchino Visconti Award. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Frame and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.

See the Finding Aid

Also see the webcast: The History of St. John the Evangelist (Levon Avdoyan)

McGuffey Reader Collection: Children's textbooks designed to teach language skills and morals, (314 titles).

The McGuffey Readers, a series of textbooks, which fused moral instruction with the teaching of language skills, are credited with revolutionizing elementary school education in the United States. A major collection of McGuffey Readers cited in Harvey C. Minnich's William Holmes McGuffey and his Readers was assembled by Maude Blair, a Detroit educator. In 1937 Miss Blair donated to the Library 195 different editions of readers, primers, spellers, and the New Eclectic Speaker, most of which show signs of classroom use. The Blair gift has been joined with items taken from the Library's general collections and forms the nucleus of the McGuffey Reader Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The 1938 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress describes the collection as including copies of all the first editions except the First Reader (1836) and McGuffey's Rhetorical Guide (1841). Also see McGuffey Reader Collection.

McManus-Young Collection: Publications and pictorial material relating to magic, magical apparatus, (673 items).

John J. and Hanna M. McManus and Morris N. and Chesley V. Young jointly presented their magic collection to the Library of Congress in 1955. The collectors had become acquainted through their shared interests and had developed the 20,000 item collection. John McManus, New York attorney and president of Rolls-Royce's American affiliate, and his wife also assembled a collection of magic paraphernalia which they donated to the Ringling Museums in Sarasota, Florida. Since the death of John McManus in 1955, Dr. Young, a New York ophthalmologic surgeon, and his wife have added material to the Library's collection.

The McManus-Young Collection provides a rich survey of the literature of what Dr. Young terms "illusion practices," the magician's manipulation of the imagination of others, and includes works on conjuring, ventriloquism, fortune-telling, spiritualism, witchcraft, gambling, hypnotism, automata, and mind reading. Rare volumes and pamphlets from the collection are kept as a unit in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. While strongest in nineteenth- and twentieth-century publications, the collection embraces significant older works such as Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (London: 1584), Thomas Ady's A Candle in the Dark (London: 1656), and many editions of Harry Dean's Hocus Pocus. Also included is an extensive file of explanations of magic tricks, the scrapbooks of mentalist C. A. George Newmann, and the famous card-rise box designed by Austrian magician Dr. Johann N Hofzinser. Leonard D. Beck's article, "Things Magical in the Collections of the Rare Book Division" (PDF, 1.01 MB) in the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal, v. 31, October 1974, p. 208-234, describes many McManus-Young items. Most volumes are represented in the author/title and shelf-list card files for the collection.

The McManus-Young Collection contains a gathering of thousands of pamphlets and offprints. This ephemeral literature is the backbone of modern magic. Through these small publications, tricks are revealed and outlined, techniques are discussed and performances are detailed. This vast collection is still arranged in its distinctive original classification and is accompanied by a corresponding card file. Included are the hundreds of pamphlets accumulated by other collectors.

Among the pictorial materials from the collection maintained by the Prints and Photographs Division are dust jackets from magic books, portraits of magicians, carnival photographs, Houdiniana, and miscellaneous printed ephemera. Aside from the theater advertisements which are kept with the posters, the McManus-Young items are described in the division catalog.

Supporting Resources

Also see: [Magic miscellanea, 1845-1955], a general description of miscellaneous materials in the McManus Young Collection.

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts Collection: Pre-1601 western manuscripts, (158 titles).

Early European manuscript books.

When the Rare Book and Special Collections Division was created in 1934, the “Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collection” was created to distinguish European manuscript codices and manuscript fragments in the Rare Book Division from manuscript materials retained in the Manuscript Division. While both Divisions have custody over handwritten collection items, materials in the “Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collection” pertain to the history of codex and are primarily from the Latin-speaking Europe. Researchers interested in European codices and fragments are encouraged to contact the Reference Staff through Ask-A-Librarian prior to beginning their research, as the format-based custodial boundaries can be challenging to navigate.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has custody of more than a hundred European manuscript codices that date from the eleventh century to the year 1600. Examples of even earlier scripts can be found in the Division’s robust collection of manuscript fragments, the earliest of which can be dated with confidence to the first quarter of the ninth century.

Supporting Resources

  • Census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, by Seymour de Ricci, with the assistance of W. J. Wilson (New York: 1935-40). Supplement originated by C. U. Faye, continued and edited by W. H. Bond (New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, Bibliographical Society of America, 1962). https://lccn.loc.gov/35031986
  • Directory of collections in the United States and Canada with pre-1600 manuscript holdings, by Melissa Conway and Lisa Fagin Davis. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 109 (3 ): 273-428,  2015. https://bibsocamer.org/wp-content/uploads/Conway-Davis-Directory-11.2014.pdf external-link
  • Medieval and Renaissance manuscript books in the Library of Congress: a descriptive catalog, by Svato Schutzner. (Washington: Library of Congress, 1989-1999). https://lccn.loc.gov/85600260

Related collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division:

Related collections in the other custodial divisions:

Kirkor Minassian Collection: Islamic bookbindings.

In the late 1920s and 1930s the Library acquired Kirkor Minassian (1874?-1944) from a New York art dealer and authority on Near Eastern manuscripts. Includes over 200 items relating to the development of writing and the book arts in the Middle East. There are 71 Islamic book bindings, including one rare fourteenth century example are housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Most of these Turkish and Persian style bindings appear to date from the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Miniature Book Collection: Books ten centimeters or less in height, (1,596 titles).

The division has custody of all books in the Library ten centimeters or less in height.

Like collections include: the Juvenile Collection: Children's books dating from the early eighteenth century to the present, (18,200 items).

Miscellaneous Bound Pamphlets Collection: Seventeenth-through nineteenth-century pamphlets, mostly in English, (30,000 pamphlets).

For a listing of titles, search the Library of Congress online catalog with the term: "Miscellaneous Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress)."

E. B. Mitchell Collection of Theatrical Programs: A collection of miscellaneous theater programs for performances in Boston, Brooklyn, New York and Washington, D.C.

A collection of miscellaneous theater programs for performances in Boston from 1878-1897; Brooklyn from 1880-1907; New York from 1871-1916 and Washington, D.C. from 1910-1920. Boston theater venues include: Boston Museum, Boston Theatre, Park Theatre, Globe Theatre, and Tremont Theatre. Brooklyn, N.Y. theater venues include: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Park Theatre, Haverly's Theatre, Brooklyn Theatre, Columbia Theatre, New Montauk Theatre, The Shubert Theatre, Teller's Broadway Theatre, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. New York City theater venues include: The American Institute, Grand Opera House, Madison Square Theatre, Star Theatre, Casino, Madison Square Garden, Fifth Avenue Theatre, Daly's Theatre, Palmer's Theatre, Broadway Theatre, Amberg Theatre, Lyceum Theatre, Standard Theatre, Garrick Theatre, Knickerbocker Theatre, Manhattan Theatre, Empire Theatre, New Amsterdam Theatre and the Comedy Theatre. Washington, D.C. theater venues include: Belasco Theatre, Shubert-Belasco, New National Theatre, Ben Greet Company (at Bristol School), Columbia Theatre, Poli's Theatre, B.F. Keith's Theatre, Washington Society of the Fine Arts and the Drama League. Accompanied by original typewritten list of contents.

For more information, see: E. B. Mitchell Collection of Theatrical Programs.

William Morris and Kelmscott Press Collection: Imprints from the Kelmscott Press printed by William Morris, (170 titles).

Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection: Pamphlets on African American history, 1850-1920, (384 pamphlets).

One of the official duties of Daniel Murray (1852-1925), a Library of Congress employee from 1871 to 1923, was to "secure" a copy of every book and pamphlet in existence, by a Negro author" for the Exhibit of Negro Authorship at the 1900 Paris Exposition. These volumes were returned to the Library and formed the nucleus of the "Library of Congress Collection of Books by Colored Authors." In 1926, through Murray's bequest, the Library received 1,448 books and pamphlets Murray had privately assembled for his projected "Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of the Colored Race"; these were added to the Colored Author Collection. While the Colored Author Collection has been integrated with the Library's general collections (duplicates were transferred to Howard University in Washington, D.C.), 184 pamphlets from Murray's library have been retained as a unit in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. These bound pamphlets were issued between 1850 and 1920 and pertain chiefly to slavery and the abolitionist movement.

This collection is fully digitized and available with other topically related items in the African American Perspectives Collection

NAWSA, (National American Woman Suffrage Association) Collection: The Library and papers of seminal NAWSA suffragists, (575 titles).

NAWSA contains nearly 800 books and pamphlets documenting the suffrage campaign. They were collected between 1890 and 1938 by members of NAWSA. The bulk of the collection is derived from the library of Carrie Chapman Catt. Additional materials were donated from the libraries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller and Mary A. Livermore.

Six books by Wollstonecraft, including A Vindication, are included along with over 900 books, journals, and scrapbooks from the libraries of Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other early leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Both the Catt and Anthony collections can be used to trace the efforts of national, state, and local women's organizations to correct discrimination against women under the civil code and to secure their right to vote, through legislative action and, after 1878, by federal amendment to the Constitution--a campaign that would take forty-two years to win. In addition to the reports and proceedings of organizations, both collections contain personal accounts and scrapbooks compiled by participants at all levels.

Digitized Materials from the NAWSA Collection

NEA Small Press Collection: Archival collection of modern small press publications funded by grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program, (2,500 items).

Small press books published in the United States with the grant assistance of the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts since 1975. See: The NEA Small Press Collection User's Guide. (PDF, 122 MB)

Edward Newton Collection: Material from the library of A. Edward Newton, (94 titles).

A. Edward Newton Collection. Single issues of serials that include articles written by A. Edward Newton, as well as lists of his works. See: A. Edward Newton Collection. Single issues of serials that include articles written by A. Edward Newton, as well as lists of his works.

Patent Office Deposit Collection: Publications deposited by the Patent Office, (88 titles).

Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection: Graphic art, papers, and cookbook collection of Elizabeth Robins Pennell, (732 titles).

Cookbooks and Cookery

Writing extensively on gastronomy, Elizabeth Pennell amassed a large collection of European cookbooks. My Cookery Books (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1903) is a personal account of her cooking activities and describes many of the 433 volumes on cookery from the Pennell bequest in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The collection is strongest in French and Italian cookbooks from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries and includes such notable items as a fully illustrated edition of Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera (Venice: 1574). Also in the division are 299 volumes of fine printing, bibliography, and literature from the Pennell library. Many works are listed in a separate author/title card file as well as the division file.

Supporting Resources

The Portuguese Pamphlets: Documents relating to 19th century Portugual, (3,100 pieces in 62 cases).

The Portuguese Pamphlets collection of the Library of Congress is the result of the collaborative efforts of the Hispanic Division, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and the Preservation Microfilming Office. The collection consists of 75 reels of microfilm containing 3,602 titles which total approximately 154,000 pages. The collection is available to the public on microfilm in the Microform Reading Room. The Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room maintains all of the originals, while The Hispanic Reading Room provides reference assistance.

This microfilmed collection of Portuguese Pamphlets was collected for the most part by Antonio Augusto de Carvalho Monteiro during a lifetime that began in 1850 and ended in 1920. In that they reflect contemporary interests and concerns, they provide an insight in 19th century Portugal. A substantial number of titles in the collection were acquired from the Newberry Library, where they represented duplicate copies, and not only serve to extend the chronological scope of the original collection back to the 17th century, but also increase the number of 19th century holdings, particularly those that reveal the struggle for the throne by D. Pedro IV and his daughter Maria II against the counter claims of D. Miguel and his supporters.

The literary items chart the course of Portuguese literature as romantic and classical traditions gave way to greater realism. Established writers and proponents of newer trends fought public battles, using pamphlets as their chosen weapons. Similar writings on historical topics reveal a longing for past glories that was manifested in a series of anniversary celebrations of voyages and discoveries, the publication of Os Lusiadas, and the deaths of Luiz de Camões, national poet, and the Marques de Pombal, strong leader of 18th-century Portugal. Eulogies, sermons, and political tracts give evidence of dynastic struggles and misfortunes; criticism of the monarchy, ministers and parliamentary leaders, and government policies was on the rise,

Ambivalent attitudes toward Great Britain, the country that had helped Portugal to rid itself of Napoleon's forces but which later blocked Portuguese expansion in Africa, are readily discerned. Writers and historians like Almeida and Oliveira Martins participated in political life; others, like Herculano, eventually turned their backs upon such activity. The Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa became a center of influence and innovation, to the extent that the latter was possible.

The pamphlet collection was initially weeded, sorted, and arranged by Mary Ellis Kahler of the Hispanic Division. Drawing on her past experience and that of colleagues, Dr. Kahler gradually evolved the present scheme of 25 broad subject categories (two of which are further divided into sub-categories). Since the nature of the microfilm medium and the format of the formal guide prohibit extensive cross-referencing, the materials in the subject categories were sequenced in various ways, depending upon the topic involved, in order to afford the most direct access to the information. Thus, materials in some subject categories are arranged chronologically by date, while others are organized by author (or title), and still others are cataloged by subject (as in the section on Biography, for example). The 25 subject categories are detailed in the "Summary Guide to Subject Categories," which appears on the first reel.

During the detailed collation and processing of the collection in preparation for filming, the "Comprehensive Guide to Contents" of the collection was developed by the staff of the Preservation Microfilming Office. Based on Dr. Kahler's preliminary efforts, the "Guide" consists of an item-by-item listing of principal bibliographic data for each of the 3,602 items.

Subject categories were processed alphabetically and appear in the "Guide" and on film in that order. Individual pamphlets within each category and from one category to the next were assigned sequential 'item numbers,' beginning with the first pamphlet in the first category (Agriculture) and ending with item 3602, the last item in the final category (Societies, Institutions, and Expositions).

Supporting Resources

Miscellany found with Post-World War II posters from Germany: Individual envelopes with typewritten captions of miscellaneous materials found among Third Reich Collection World War II era posters.

From typewritten captions on accompanying envelopes: German leaflet about Polish farm workers (1 item);, Bombay War Publicity committee (6 photostats); General de Gaulle, Leaflet used by De Gaulle attempting to land at Dakar (6 items); Censorship agreement German occupation army in France, French press (2 photostats); Forms and passes, France. Bordeaux (26 items); Mexico. Revolutionary propaganda (3 photostats); Mexico. Anti-semitic, anti-democratic propaganda (5 folded items, 3 photostats); Hungary World War II broadsides (5 items).

Supporting Resources

Printed Ephemera Collection: Posters, playbills, songsheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards, (over 28,000 items with 10,172 available online).

View Printed Ephemera digital collection

Pulp Fiction Collection: Popular American fiction magazines, 1920s-1950s, (277 titles).

The Pulp Fiction collection at the Library of Congress consists of issues received on copyright deposit at the time of their publication. It is described in Annette Melville's "Special Collections in the Library of Congress: A Selective Guide" (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980). A great majority of the issues were held by the Serial and Government Publications Division, although three extremely rare and valuable titles were transferred to the Rare Book & Special Collections Division: Amazing Stories, Black Mask, and Weird Tales. The collection has now been microfilmed and is available in the Microform Reading Room, LJ-107, Jefferson Building.

The "Pulps," so called because they were printed on cheap high-acid-content paper, served as popular reading material, similar to today's paperback; cheap, portable, disposable, and often sensational. This genre flourished from the 1920's to the 1950's. Titles focused on specific literary types: romance, sports, western, detective, science fiction, horror, or military (during World War II). Writers were frequently paid by the word, and to meet daily living expenses, well-known authors sometimes wrote for these magazines under pseudonyms, putting only their "literary" work under their real name.

Authors who got their start by writing for pulp fiction magazines include: Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard.

Also see: The Inventory of Pulp Magazines (PDF, 30 KB)

Radical Pamphlets Collection: Pamphlets, broadsides, and memorabilia concerning American communism, anarchism, and socialism, 1870-1980 (especially 1930-1949), (2,000 items).

Pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, posters, cartoons, sheet music, and prints relating primarily to American communism, socialism, and anarchism from 1870 through 1980, with the bulk of the material published between 1930 and 1949. The largest component deals with the operations of the Communist Party of the United States of America, its members, and various front organizations.

Many pamphlets relate to the presidential campaigns of Earl Browder and William Z. Foster. Includes campaign literature for state and local contests in New York and California, and material concerning Afro-American communists and communist youth and student groups. Most items relating to socialism are found under the Socialist Party of the United States of America, its members, and affiliates. Included are state and local campaign materials, and pamphlets by Norman Thomas. The anarchist component of the collection includes materials published in the United States by leading European anarchists such as Johann Most, Rudolf Rocker, Alexander Berkman, Petr Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, Carlo Tresca, and Emile Armand, with many works by Emma Goldman. Also includes pamphlets by American anarchists Benjamin Tucker and William B. Greene, and materials published by the Industrial Workers of the World.

Most of the pamphlets, circulars, brochures, and broadsides in the collection were printed in New York City and Buffalo on the East Coast and Los Angeles on the West Coast and were published by Workers Library, New Century Publishers, or as part of the International Pamphlet series. Some booklets passed through many hands and were, so to speak, front-line troops in the war for the hearts and minds of Americans. A copy of Eugene Varlin's The Negro and the U.S. Army bears both the library marks of the Harlem branch of the Socialst Workers Daily and the Militant Bookshop and Socialist Workers Office in Milwaukee.

Though there are in the collection well-known names and a few pieces known to students in the field, the great strengths are the little-known materials. With a few exceptions the pamphlets have not been republished. The lack of bibliographic information and the paucity of the collections have inhibited scholarly activity. We invite investigation and inquiries.

Supporting Resources

Reformation Collection: Publications Relating to the Reformation, sixteenth century, (192 titles).

In the late nineteenth century 232 works attributed to Martin Luther were transferred to the Library of Congress from the Smithsonian Institution. To these were added approximately 50 volumes selected from the Library's General Collections and 142 volumes, donated by Otto Vollbehr in 1938, containing works by Luther, as well as John Calvin, Johann Eck, Hieronymus Emser, Ulrich von Hutten, Philipp Melanchthon, Johann Reuchlin, Johannes Trithemius, and other religious writers of the period. The Reformation Collection consists largely of sixteenth century editions, some of which contain woodcut border illustrations and contemporary annotations.

Supporting Resources

Bruce Rogers Collection: Books designed by Bruce Rogers and his personal papers, 34,000 items and 20 boxes of proofs, typefaces, etc.

In 1959 bookdealer S. R. Shapiro presented to the Library a collection of trade books that had been designed under the supervision of Bruce Rogers (1870-1957) during his years at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1895-1912). In 1973 Mr. Shapiro added to the collection letters, proofcuts, financial papers, and ephemera relating to the work of this important American book designer. The papers (790 manuscripts items) include transcripts of Rogers' letters to his friend Harry Watson Kent, secretary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a collection entitled "E-pistolery Letter's to My Co-respondents Written on my tipewriter by Gess Whoo?" which Rogers had intended for publication; material pertaining to the preparation and distribution of his anthology, Pi (1953); and Mr. Shapiro's personal correspondence with Rogers. There are 226 volumes in the collection.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Collection: Material concerning Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (254 titles).

Invitations, programs, tickets, menus, guest lists, portraits, clippings, and other memorabilia relating to White House functions and public and private events and entertainments hosted or attended by Franklin Roosevelt during his presidency. Most are autographed and many are accompanied by original envelopes. See: Roosevelt Miscellany, 1933-1945: Ephemera in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Collection for details.

Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection: The illustrated book, fifteenth through twentieth centuries.

The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection stands out among the distinguished resources of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Taking the illustrated book as its central theme and containing books from the last six centuries and manuscripts from the three preceding, the collection's greatest strengths are in the fifteenth century woodcut books, early sixteenth-century illustrated books, William Blake, and twentieth-century livres des peintres. Within this grand design the late Mr. Rosenwald sought books produced by the earliest printers and outstanding presses of later periods, and books on the following subjects: science, calligraphy, botany, and chess. The catalog describing the collection published in 1978 contains 2,653 entries, many for books represented by more than one copy.

Among the characteristics which make this collection such a rich potential resource for study are the presence of an amazing number of unique books and books of such great rarity that only a handful of copies is known. Virtually every book in the collection is in superb condition and many contain such special features as original drawings, artists' proofs, trial states, and laid-in letters. Mr. Rosenwald's assemblage of books, plates, drawings, and engravings by William Blake is one of the finest ever brought together. Of the twenty illuminated books described in Geoffrey Keynes's Blake bibliography, the collection contains fourteen, as well as duplicates and extra plates. Finding that the Blake materials received more use than any other section of the collection, Mr. Rosenwald made copies of many of the illuminated books available to the Trianon Press for a series of facsimiles.

Outstanding rarities include a volume containing four complete books printed by William Caxton, England's finest printer; eleven block books; the magnificent fifteenth-century manuscript known as the Giant Bible of Mainz; and one of two known copies of the 1495 edition of Epistolae et Evangelia, called by some the finest illustrated book of the fifteenth century. Rarities are, however, but one aspect of the collection. Its particular importance arises from the quantity and unity of the material, much of it still awaiting scholarly investigation. Before being purchased by Mr. Rosenwald, the 160 15th and 16th century Dutch and Flemish books from the Dukes of Arenberg had been inaccessible to generations of scholars and bibliographers.

The collection catalog describes Mr. Rosenwald's gifts to the Library of Congress in the years 1943 to 1975. Accounts of subsequent additions can be found in the division's acquisitions report of the Quarterly Journal.

During Mr. Rosenwald's lifetime the collection was housed in his private gallery, the Alverthorpe Gallery in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Not long after his death on June 24, 1979, the collection was brought to Washington and is available for consultation in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The division houses a card catalog containing author entries for the books and manuscripts in the collection.

See Digitized Materials from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection

Russian Imperial Collection: Books from the libraries of the Russian imperial family, (2,600 titles).

In the early 1930s, 2,600 volumes from the book collections of the Romanov family were purchased by the Library of Congress through a New York book dealer. Variously called the Winter Palace Collection, the Tsar's Library, and (more accurately) the Russian Imperial Collection, these elaborately bound volumes have been assigned, for the most part, to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The collection includes eighteenth- and nineteenth-century documents, biographies, works of literature, and military, social, and administrative histories, and reflects the reading interests of the imperial family and the types of publications they received as gifts. Books in English, French, and German are well represented, although the majority of the publications are in Russian. The volumes carry the bookplates of Alexander III, his wife Maria Fedorovna, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, their son Aleksei Nikolaevich, and other family members.

Two other Divisions maintain significant portions of the original purchase. The music from the collection -- largely nineteenth century Russian scores -- has been integrated into the rare book collection of the Music Division and includes a presentation copy of the first edition of the full score of Glinka's Ruslan i Liudmila (1878), prepared as two volumes and bound with an added dedicatory leaf, and the 1894 edition of Rimsky-Korsakov's first opera Pskovitianka. The 1931 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress highlights the most important music items.

The Law Library received copies of military laws, laws regarding the abolition of serfdom, revisions of civil and criminal laws, and various texts on special legal subjects. The legal titles are listed in the 1931 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress and are now part of the holdings of Russian legal sources and literature in the European Law Division.

Supporting Resources

Theodore Roosevelt Hunting Library: Publications on hunting, natural history, and exploration, 13 titles

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) took great personal interest in his "big-game library" and bequeathed this portion of his book collection to his youngest son Kermit, who in turn left it to his son and namesake. In 1963 and 1964 Kermit Roosevelt presented his grandfather's hunting collection to the Library of Congress. Although composed primarily of late nineteenth and early twentieth century publications on hunting, natural history, exploration, ornithology, and sport, the collection includes a number of significant early editions such as Jean de Clamorgan's La Chasse du loup (Paris: 1566); Robert de Salnove's La Venerie royal (Paris: 1655); L'Histoire naturelle (Paris: 1767), a work by John Ray that was translated into French by François Salerne; and The Histoire of Fovre-Footed Beastes (London: 1607) and The Historie of Serpents (London: 1608) by Edward Topsell. Most of the 254 volumes bear Roosevelt's bookplate.

Supporting Resources

Saint Mark's Poetry Project Collection: Ephemeral publications and audio poetry readings, (over 1,000 items).

The Saint Mark's Project is part of a community arts program which has been operating out of St. Mark's Church in the Bowery since 1966. The Project has been the site of readings by hundreds of poets over the years, including Allen Ginsberg, W. H. Auden, Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan and many others. In 2006, the Library of Congress acquired the Projects archives, which include flyers, newsletters, announcements, as well as audio archives of their events. These are probably the most significant post-war poetry readings in existence.

Seaside Library Collection: Folio Collections including 2,500 popular titles from the 19th century published in inexpensive serial form by George Munro.

The Seaside Library Folio Collection from the Library of Congress’s Rare Books and Special Collections Division includes 2,500 popular titles from the 19th century published in inexpensive serial form by George Munro. Serialized English translations of more than forty 19th-century French novels by authors such as Jules Verne, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, Honoré de Balzac, Alphonse Daudet, Sarah Bernhardt, and numerous lesser known popular writers have been digitized for France in America.

Shaker Collection: Shaker literature donated by J. P. A. MacLean, (487 items).

John Patterson MacLean, a native Ohioan and American Universalist Minister, donated primary and secondary literature on the "Western" Shakers of Ohio. Primarily comprised of books, pamphlets, songs, poetry and assorted ephemera, the collection focuses on the writings of Richard McNemar with printers in Watervliet, as well as Union Village and Lebanon, Ohio.

"The literature of Shakerism is an essential part of the history of Ohio. Such publications as the Shakers have circulated helped in the development of the character of its advocates. The Believers who have resided in Ohio from time to time gave their literary efforts to the world, and thus helped to impress the minds of co-believers in other states."

J.P. MacLean from Bibliography of Shaker Literature, 1909.

[Shaker Hymn Book]. [Watervliet, Ohio: s.n., ca. 1833].
Page Turner - PDF (43.82) - Bibliographic Information

Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana: Publications, manuscripts, prints, and other material relating to Abraham Lincoln, (11,100 items).

Alfred Whital Stern (1881-1960) of Chicago presented his outstanding collection of Lincolniana to the Library in 1953. Begun by Mr. Stern in the 1920s, the collection documents the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) through writings by and about Lincoln, contemporary newspapers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, stamps, coins, autograph letters, and a large body of publications concerned with slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and related topics. The collection includes copies of three speeches delivered by Lincoln during his term as congressman from Illinois (1947-49), Lincoln's own scrapbook of the 1858 political campaign against Stephen A. Douglas, a rare copy of the first edition of the Lincoln-Douglas debates that was printed from his scrapbook (Columbus, 1860), numerous campaign biographies prepared for the 1860 presidential election, printed materials relating to the assassination and funeral, and a Lincoln life mask in bronze by Leonard Volk. Probably the single most famous Lincoln manuscript in the collection is the letter to Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker dated January 26, 1863, placing him in command of the Army of the Potomac. Since Mr. Stern's death, the collection has continued to grow through the provisions of an endowment established by his family and it now numbers over 11,100 pieces.

Supporting Resources

Stone and Kimball Collection: Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century publications of Stone and Kimball, (182 titles).

The Stone and Kimball Collection is a representative gathering of the output of the Chicago publishing firm that was celebrated for its careful design for commerical work. The influence of William Morris is very evident. The firm published 306 books during its glory days (1897-1905) and the division's collection holds 182 of these.

"T.C." Collection: Early works of Theodore Dreiser collected by Walter N. Tobriner and presented to Roger S. Cohen, (115 titles).

A native of the District of Columbia, Walter Tobriner (July 2, 1902 – July 14, 1979), presented as a memorial to a deceased friend an important collection of the writings of Theodore Dreiser. Tobriner was a lawyer, educator and public figure. He served on numerous boards and was also the U.S. ambassador to Jamaica from 1967-1969.

Tabard Inn Library Collection: Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century imprints from the Tabard Inn Library, a circulating library, (87 items).

A partial, representative collection of books assembled by Jacob Blanck that formed the lending stock of the "Tabard Inn Library" scheme, a commercial venture. Opened in Philadelphia in March, 1902, it was designed to reach a much larger audience than a related organization, the Booklovers Library, which originated in the same city two years earlier and was restricted to invited members. The Tabard Inn Library also offered older titles from its collection for purchase or exchange for recently published items. Some of the volumes have labels that identify them as being part of the Booklovers Library. Several catalogs and descriptions of both libraries are also included. The collection reflects book distribution and reading patterns in the United States during the early 20th century. See Tabard Inn Library for details.

John Boyd Thacher Collection: Incunabula, early Americana, material pertaining to the French Revolution, autographs, (5,193 items).

The book and manuscript collection of John Boyd Thacher (1847-1909), a manufacturer and politician from Albany, New York, was deposited at the Library in the 1910s and 1920s and donated through his widow's bequest. The collection is composed of four distinct bodies of material -- incunabula, early Americana, material pertaining to the French Revolution, and autographs. The early printed books include works produced by more than 500 fifteenth-century presses and such outstanding items as a vellum copy of Rationale Divinorum Officiorum by Gulielmus Durantis (Mainz: Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, 1459) and the only known American copy of Breviarium Moguntinum (Marienthal: Frates Vitae Communis, 1474) and Vocabularis ex Quo (Eltvil: Nicholas Bechtermüntze, 1476). Mr. Thacher drew upon his extensive collection of Americana for his publications, The Continent of America (1896) and Christopher Columbus (1903-4). This segment of the Thacher collection is highlighted by copies of 34 early editions of Ptolemy's Geographia, three editions of Martin Waldseeemüller's Cosmographiae Introductio printed before 1510, and the famous Travisan manuscript, written in Venice about 1503, concerning Spanish explorations in America during the period 1492 to 1500 and Portuguese voyages to India from 1497 to 1502. Mr. Thacher also assembled books, contemporary newspaper accounts, pamphlets, and manuscripts as source material for projected work on the French Revolution. Virtually every figure important to the revolutionary movement is represented by autographs, including Danton, Lavoisier, Marat, and Robespierre. The autograph collection focuses on European royal families and contains items dating from as early as the fourteenth century. The Library has published a three-volume catalog of the collection.

Supporting Materials

Prentiss Taylor Collection: African American and twentieth-century literature.

Prentise Taylor, painter and lithographer, made many donations of African American and twentieth-century literature to the Division. Authors include Carl Van Vechten, Laura Benet and Chard Powers Smith. In addition, the collection contains works from American poet and novelist Langston Hughes, one of which, Shakespeare in Harlem (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942) is inscribed both on the title-page and in an inscription worked into the dust jacket design.

Theater Playbills Collection: Nineteenth-century English-language playbills, (3,253 items).

The largest of the division's theater program collections is the Theater Playbills and Programs Collection which consists of theater programs divided into multiple series with individually cataloged programs and playbills.

Items are organized by subject, format and donor and include Shakespeare plays, historical American playbills, foreign productions, souvenir programs, scrapbooks and miscellany. There is a special card file index located in the divison's reading room.

The Theater Playbills and Programs Collection includes materials from the following:

  • The Arts Club of Washington (Washington, D.C.) (1924-1935) A collection of theater programs for performances by the Arts Club of Washington between 1924 and 1935.
  • The Blackfriars (University of Alabama), 1937-1942. A collection of theater programs for performances by the Blackfriars Theatre group at the University of Alabama under the direction of Lester Raines between 1937 and 1942.
  • Burton Holmes Travelogue Programs (1903-1936) A small collection of scattered programs and playbills for travelogues by Burton Holmes (1903-1932). Venues include the National Theater (1912-1920) and New National Theater (1923-1936) in Washington, D.C. and single programs from the Lyric Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland (1903) and Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Illinois (1931-1932).
  • Carolina Playmakers (1938-1939) A collection of theater programs and playbills for performances of the Carolina Playmakers under Frederick H. Koch from 1938-1939. Also includes promotional materials and oversize playbills.
  • Carolina Playmakers (1940-1947) A collection of theater programs and playbills for performances of the Carolina Playmakers under Frederick H. Koch from 1940-1943 and 1946-1947. Also includes promotional materials, season subscription and scholarship application forms and oversize playbills.
  • Dinner, luncheon and breakfast menus and programs miscellany (1869-1938): A small collection of items from 1869 to 1938 that include menus for dinners, luncheons, breakfasts and banquets with associated entertainments or ceremony programs. Items are from various locations including Albany, Brooklyn, New York City and Niagara Falls, New York and one item from Geneva, Switzerland with most items from Washington, D.C. Includes a few seating lists, invitations and song sheets. Items were found in the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Theater Playbills and Programs Collection miscellany.
  • Drama League of America, Washington Center bulletins (1912-1915): A collection of miscellaneous bulletins of the Playgoing Committee, Washington Center of the Drama League from November 4, 1912 to April 19, 1915.

The Third Reich Collection: Publications and photographs from the libraries of Nazi leaders, (1,019 titles).

The Third Reich Collection, a miscellany of books, albums, and printed materials from the Reichskanzlei Library in Berlin and the private book collections of several high-ranking Nazi Party officials, was discovered in a salt mine near Berchtesgaden among Nazi property that had been removed from Berlin during the last stages of World War II. The so-called Hitler Library was screened by the U.S. Army Document Center in Munich and shipped to the Library of Congress in 1946. A large number of the 1,200 volumes transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division are official presentation copies which bear dedications, notes of transmittal, or in some cases Hitler's eagle bookplate. Several books were acquired by Hitler before 1930. The Third Reich Collection also includes a set of Die Alte Garde spricht, a series of typed autobiographies of Nazi Party members; a Braille edition of Mein Kampf; and materials from the libraries of Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Franz Xaver Schwarz, and other Nazi leaders.

Supporting Resources

Thompson Chesson Scrapbooks: 19 scrapbooks related to the abolition of slavery.

Our Countrymen in Chains! From the Printed Ephemera Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division

George D. Thompson, (1804-1878) and Frederick W. Chesson, (1833-1888) were British abolitionists, lecturers and anti-slavery activists. Thompson founded the Edinburgh Society for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the World in 1833. He worked with William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier and other members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and was instrumental in establishing early abolitionist societies in both the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1847. Thompson was elected as a Member of Parliament where he served until 1852. Frederick William Chesson was an English journalist, influential anti-slavery proponent and secretary of the London Aborigines’ Protection Society. In 1855, Chesson married Amelia Thompson, the daughter of George Thompson. Together in 1859, F.W. Chesson and George Thompson founded the London Emancipation Society.

19 scrapbooks (1797-1886) consist of newspaper clippings from various sources documenting the activities of Thompson and include writings by Chesson. Included are handwritten notes by Thompson, pamphlets, handbills, letters to the editor, newspaper reports, essays and book reviews written by Chesson.

Supporting Resources

Gaston and Albert Tissandier Collection: Publications relating to the history of aeronautics, (1,800 titles dispersed in the collection).

Also see Balloons: Collected Pamphlets and Bibliographie Aéronautique: Catalogue de Livres d'Histoire, de Science, de Voyages et de Fantaisie Traitant de la Navigation Aérienne ou des Aérostats by Tissandier Gaston.

Raymond Toinet Collection: Early editions of French literary works, (2,500 titles dispersed in the collection).

Many of the rarities in this collection are from the 17th century. Of these, a large number of the items are of editions of plays.

Joseph Meredith Toner Collection: Publications and papers relating to the history of American medicine, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; early American Imprints, (30,851 titles, 7,739 pamphlets).

In 1882 Joseph Meredith Toner (1825-1896), Washington physician and medical historian, presented his research collection to the Library of Congress. Counting the many volumes added to the collection in later installments, Dr. Toner donated nearly 50,000 books, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and issues of periodicals as well as maps, manuscripts, and innumerable files of newspaper clippings. Aside from the research value of this material, the Toner Collection is historically significant to the Library of Congress as it marks, in the words of the Senate Report of May 16, 1882, "the first instance in the history of this government of the free gift of a large and valuable library to the nation." Dr. Toner described his library in a letter included in the same report:

They are chiefly medical works and general and local American histories; publications relating to our climate and diseases; biographies of medical men...and works on the history of medicine in America from the settlement of the country to the end of the first half century of our national existence...My collection is...measurably rich in the early literature of small-pox, yellow fever, cholera, and the other epidemics, general and local, which have appeared in our country. My special collection of the early contributions to the literature of medicine in American and early American imprints is scarcely second to any in the country.

Aside from the legal works that have been assigned to the Law Library, the printed material from the Toner Collection is kept in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The 30,851 volumes and 7,739 pamphlets include extensive runs of nineteenth century medical journals.

Supporting Resources

Also see Toner Excerpts; Joseph Meredith Toner Collection of Newspaper Clippings, (1816-1895)  (PDF, 921 KB) and P-4 Shelflist: a microform of Slavic materials from the Toner Collection.

Mark Twain Collection: Rare Twain manuscripts and books donated by Mrs. Frances R. Friedman, (450 items).

See: Samuel Langhorne Clemens; a Centennial for Tom Sawyer; An Annotated, Selected Bibliography for details.

Unclassified Collection: Nineteenth and twentieth century English-language material, (5,607 items).

Underground Movement Collection: World War II resistance material, (16,162 items).

See: Finding Aid to the Collection

Serials and Miscellaneous publications of the Underground Movements in Europe During World War II, 1936-1945.

The work is divided into 28 series of serials and miscellaneous publications for the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, French Territories, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Netherland Territories, Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia. The serials are periodicals with dates, and sometimes issue numbering, while the miscellaneous publications embraces a wide field of political tracts, single handout sheets, private letters, newspaper clippings, posters, etc.... Fourteen countries are represented with each having a section and an additional section for French Territories. There is also an Appendix for German language items addressed to German prisoners of war, and civilians living in the Reich. There is also a small handful of pro-Axis or collaborator publications. All items are arranged alphabetically by title. With the exception of the titles for the Greek Miscellaneous items, which are in English, all publications are entitled as found, with diacritics. Miscellaneous items are defined as follows: a one page work is a flyer, a two page work on one sheet is a leaflet, and anything of greater length is a pamphlet. Please note that there are links for periodical issues and miscellaneous pieces that are located in both the regular and oversize boxes. Part of the collection consists of reproduced materials. Only a few items are also held in the Library’s general collection, and they are designated by LC call number.

Also see the related webcast: Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist and the Plot for the Third Reich. Like collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division include: Miscellany found with Post-World War II posters from Germany: Individual envelopes with typewritten captions of miscellaneous materials found among Third Reich Collection World War II era posters and The Third Reich Collection: Publications and photographs from the libraries of Nazi leaders

Jules Verne Collection: Early editions of Jules Verne's writings collected by Willis E. Hurd, (146 titles).

The Jules Verne Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division was presented to the Library in 1961 by Rilma Hurd. Assembled by her father, Willis E. Hurd of Arlington, Virginia, the collection consists largely of late nineteenth and early twentieth century editions of the science fiction writer's works which were issued in translation in England and the United States. The books have distinctive illustrations and decorated covers.

Otto Vollbehr Collection: Incunabula, (3,114 titles).

The Vollbehr Collection, stated George Parker Winship of the Harvard Library shortly before its purchase by act of Congress in 1930, "is representative, to an amazing degree, of every sort of publication which came from the fifteenth century presses." The collection contains incunabula produced at 635 different printing establishments and an rich selection of books in vernacular languages. This acquisition quadrupled the number of fifteenth century books held by the Library of Congress and established the Library as the leading center for the study of early printing.

Otto Vollbehr was a German industrialist whose family had made a fortune in the dyestuff industry; he took up book collecting when his physician recommended that he adopt a hobby following a railway accident which left him with a serious nervous condition. In addition to collecting books he acquired “ready-made” collections of 15-18th century book illustrations and of printers’ marks.

The treasure of the Vollbehr Collection is the copy of the Bible produced by Johann Gutenberg at Mainz about 1456-the first book printed with movable type in the western world. The Library's Gutenberg Bible is one of the three surviving perfect copies on vellum. The work had been in the possession of the Benedictine Order for nearly five centuries before it was acquired by Dr. Otto Vollbehr from the Abbey of Saint Paul in eastern Carinthia, Austria. Bound as three volumes, the Bible retains the bookplate of the monastery of Saint Blasius (the owner of the work until the late eighteenth century) as well as its late sixteenth century white pigskin binding. There are 3,114 volumes in the Vollbehr Collection.

Supporting Resources

Wertham Collection: Publications primarily related to psychology, (10,000 unprocessed items).

Books related to psychiatrist Frederic Wertham. His life work was mainly dedicated to protesting the harmful effect of violent visual materials and their developmental implicatons on children. In particular, Wertham was against comic books themed with super heros and horror.

Also see: Frederic Wertham papers, 1818-1986

Woodrow Wilson Library: Books and personal mementos of Woodrow Wilson, (9,136 items).

The personal library of Woodrow Wilson (1854-1924) was presented to the Library of Congress by Edith Bolling Galt Wilson in 1946. Containing books associated with every period of Wilson's life, the collection includes volumes read as a child; texts used at preparatory school, college, and law school; works in the fields of economics, political science, history, and literature which Wilson acquired during his years as an educator; and hundreds of inscribed volumes that were presented to him during and after his presidency. Also preserved are over one hundred diplomas, medals, and personal mementos. The Wilson Library contains 6,792 volumes and 1,122 pamphlets and complements the presidential papers donated to the Library by Mrs. Wilson beginning in 1939.

Supporting Resources

World War II Propaganda Collection: Propaganda material distributed in Europe during World War II, (6,700 items).

Pamphlets, broadsides, leaflets, manuscript and mimeographed materials, photographs, posters, and small artifacts distributed by various countries.

Supporting Resources

YA Pamphlet Collection: Nineteenth-century congressional documents; nineteenth-century English-language pamphlets; and European imprints from the sixteenth century onward, (25,290 items).

Pamphlets concerning medicine, with the bulk of the material published in the United States and Europe between 1870 and 1905. Broad subjects include dermatology, gynecology, internal medicine, materia medica, obstetrics, pharmacology, preventive medicine, public health, therapeutics, tuberculosis, and vivisection. The majority of the items are offprints or reprints of articles from scientific periodicals, and dissertations in French or German. There are also advertisements, broadsides, and one letter.

Supporting Resources

  • Related Collections: YA Medical Pamphlets
  • Finding Aid: Inventory of Medical Pamphlets in the YA Pamphlet Collection.

Yudin Collection: Publications relating to Russian history, bibliography, and literature, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; pictorial material; papers of the Russian American Company, (4,173 titles).

Gennadii Vasil'evich Yudin (1840-1912), a wealthy Siberian distiller and amateur bibliographer, developed one of the finest personal libraries in the Russian Empire. Collecting extensively in the fields of Russian bibliography, history, and literature, Yudin accumulated significant holdings of provincial gazettes, early editions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary works, early Russian-language imprints, and Russian literary and historical magazines. From his home near Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, he was able to procure local publications that had escaped the attention of the major Russian libraries and so amassed an unparalleled collection on his native region. Many contemporaries were impressed by the scope of the Yudin library, among them Lenin, who used the Collection while exiled in Siberia from 1898. The Yudin collection was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1906 and forms the cornerstone of the Library's present Russian-language resources. Although the 80,000 volumes have been absorbed into the general collections, the original handwritten inventory can be consulted in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and is also available on microfilm. Sergius Yakobson's article, "An Autobiography of Gennadii Vasil'evich Yudin," in the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal, v. 3, February 1946, p. 13-15, includes a biographical statement by Yudin and information on his library.

Scores of rare imprints from the Yudin library are housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and form the greater part of the division's eighteenth-century Russian-language holdings. Alexis Babine's account of the Yudin library highlights such valuable items as the first edition of A. N. Radischev's critique of serfdom Puteshetvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow) (1790); Irtysh (1789), the first magazine published in Siberia; a Slavonic ABC book issued in Rome in 1753; and the first Russian geometry book (1725). These are listed, without indication of provenance, in Eighteenth Century Russian Publications in the Library of Congress: A Catalog (Washington: 1961. xvi, 157 p. Z2502.U5), prepared by Tatiana Fessenko. Rare nineteenth-century books include the earliest edition of Dostoevskii's first published novel Biednye liudi (Poor People) (1847) and one of the few copies of the first edition of the medieval poem Slovo o polku Igoreve (Song of Igor's Campaign) (1800) to escape the burning of Moscow in 1812.

Supporting Resources

Related Collections:

  • Russian Imperial Collection
  • Bookplate Collection

Digitized Related Collections

Books from the Yudin Collection

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