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If one says “Red” (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (1963) The artist Joseph Albers (1888-1976) was born in... Continue reading “Formulation : Articulation, by Josef Albers (1972)” ›
Joseph Franz von Goez’s 1783 adaptation of Lenardo und Blandine “in 160 impassioned designs” may be the world’s first graphic novel. Based on a ballad by German poet Gottfried August Bürger, Goez’s book tells the story of doomed lovers Lenardo and Blandine in a series of captioned copper etchings. Bürger’s poem is itself based on... Continue reading “Lenardo und Blandine, illustrated by Joseph Franz von Goez (1783)” ›
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) is now best known as portrait painter of some of the most famous figures of Renaissance Europe, including Erasmus, Thomas More, and King Henry VIII of England. But as a young artist in his native Basel, Holbein also worked as an illustrator, producing drawings that would be reproduced in woodcuts... Continue reading “Images of the Old Testament, by Hans Holbein (1549)” ›
Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide the contest; the appeal was the choice... Continue reading “Common Sense, by Thomas Paine (1776)” ›
Text page from the first edition of Ulysses The publishing history of James Joyce’s Ulysses is itself a complicated odyssey. Joyce began writing Ulysses, a modernist novel detailing one day (16 June 1904) in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom, in 1914. By 1918 he was sending typescript chapters to Ezra Pound to be published... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: Ulysses, by James Joyce (1922)” ›
“We have yet had no genius in America, with tyrannous eye, which knew the value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in Homer; then in the middle age; then in Calvinism. . . .Yet America... Continue reading “Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855)” ›
See this post in our Special Collections & Archives blog. Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by Oliver Byrne (1847)” ›
THIS WORK has a greater aim than mere illustration; we do not introduce colours for the purpose of entertainment, or to amuse by certain combinations of tint and form, but to assist the mind in its researches after truth, to increase the facilities of instruction, and to diffuse permanent knowledge. Oliver Byrne (ca. 1810-1890) was... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by Oliver Byrne (1847)” ›
Of the five Christmas books that Charles Dickens published in the 1840s, the first, A Christmas Carol (1843), is by far the most famous. The following year Dickens came out with The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In. Although the book sold well... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: The Chimes: A Goblin Story, by Charles Dickens” ›
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley” ›