“This Guffawgraph is intended to form a refuge for destitute wit — an asylum for the thousands of orphan jokes — the millions of perishing puns, which are now wandering about without so much as a shelf to rest upon!” — Punch, Volume 1 (1841) Punch, or the London...

“If a scholar only stays in one place, he will be blocked by one small river and become narrow-minded and ignorant. He must travel everywhere to see human affairs, the social customs of the north and the south, mountains and rivers, and to broaden his...

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold...

"An object is not an object. It is the witness to a relationship" -- Cecilia Vicuña The Rare Books Department invites you to view its most recent virtual lecture, "Armchair Indigeneity: Memory, Language, Dissolution, Exile, Extinction." We look at writings by and about indigenous peoples in Mexico,...

"Do not believe more than what you see with your eyes." -- Montezuma to Cortés, according to Cortés, 1519 Rare Books invites you to view its most recent virtual lecture, "What You See With Your Eyes." Why are texts written? and for whom? Why are texts recorded...

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere Home! Home! Sweet, sweet home! There's no place like home There's no place like home! An...

“At two P.M we set sail, and the men voluntarily launched out to make a traverse of fifteen miles across Melville Sound, before a strong wind and heavy sea. The privation of food, under which our voyagers were then laboring, absorbed every other terror; otherwise...