A discussion of early dust wrappers on books on the SHARP discussion list took a side turn when wrappers on playing cards came up as a possibly parallel phenomenon. The recently-publicized Field collection of playing cards — over 6,000 decks and a good bit of related material — has a number of these wrappers. In […]
Eggs and “Art”
Today, in to look at medieval manuscripts, I had a great group of 7th graders from a local school: enthusiastic kids, smart, engaging, who made the leap from the early materials they were looking at to their own education in a flash. They looked at a 13th century sale receipt for a slave and a […]
A “New” Medieval Manuscript
Great news: we were the successful bidders at the November auction of medieval manuscripts at Christie’s, London! The wonderful new addition to our collection, soon to be known officially as Western MS 88, is a canon law compilation, copied in France, ca. 1240. It’s a superb example of the way medieval books usually circulated, with […]
Anton Seidl
We were contacted recently by Katherine Syer for permission to publish two images of documents in the papers of Anton Seidl, held by RBML on deposit from the Music Library, in her forthcoming “From Page to Stage: Wagner as Regisseur.” It will be part of the Princeton University Press book Wagner and his World, edited […]
William S. Burroughs’ Dream Machine
RBML collects more than just books and manuscripts; we also have a lot of what librarians call realia—real life objects. Pictured here is our Dream Machine, which comes from William S. Burroughs, via his collaborator & one time assistant Steven Lowe. The Dream Machine is a simple device: a slotted cardboard cylinder is mounted on […]