In Spring 2019 students from Spanish 3070 Literary Analysis attended the Rare Books Classroom to consider the physical aspects of literary texts and to decipher first-hand the impact of examining a book and text as physical object. The viewing offered students a chance to see...

16 May, 2019 /

"Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of the ages." -- Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame Construction of the Notre Dame de Paris began between 24 March and 25 April, 1163. Notre Dame burned a month ago today. Its history, like that of...

15 May, 2019 /

“No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to...

23 October, 2018 /

“Newton’s design was to make me come to him, force me to comply with his humors, and flatter him and cry him up as Dr. Halley did. He thought to work me to his ends by putting me to extraordinary charges. Those that have begun...

15 March, 2018 /

David TAILLADES, Hiram, Le Mystere de la Maitrise et les origines de la franc-maconnerie (Paris: Editions Dervy, 2017) Presented as a gift from the author to Rare Books for assistance with Masonic sources, such as articles from the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Title: Ars Quatuor Coronatorum: Being...

26 January, 2018 /

““How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was...

25 September, 2017 /