American scenery, in color

Shaw, Joshua.
Picturesque Views of American Scenery: Engraved by Hill, from Drawings by Joshua Shaw, Landscape Painter. No. I [II-III] Philadelphia: Published by M. Carey & Son, 1820-21. Three volumes.
First edition of one of the earliest American color-plate publications. Bound in the original paper wrappers, now detached. Acquired from an undetermined source prior to 1970.

Romanticism in Italy

Manzoni, Alessandro, 1785-1873.
Autograph letter, signed. Brusuglio, presso a Milano, 22 September 1823, 18 leaves (35 pages), in Italian.
The original draft of Manzoni's celebrated essay on Romanticism in Italy, as sent to his friend Cesare d'Azeglio. The work became widely popular following its unauthorized first printing (in Paris, from a very imperfect copy of this letter) in 1846. Acquired by the Woodstock College Library some time before 1882 and deposited at Georgetown with the archives of the Woodstock Theological Center, 1976.

Audubon's birds in octavo

Audubon, John James, 1785-1851
The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories. New York: Published by J. J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840-44. Seven volumes.
First octavo edition, lacking four plates. Bound in three-quarter red morocco and marbled paper boards, very likely in the Georgetown College bindery. Acquired from an undetermined source (but most likely purchased) prior to 1868.

Thoreau to O. A. Brownson

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company, 1849.
First edition of the author's first book, inscribed by him on the front free endpaper: "Rev O. A. Brownson with the Regards of the author." After page 272 the text is unopened and therefore unread. Bound in the original cloth (rebacked). Purchase, 1985, with the rare book collection of the University of Detroit.

Early poems by A. C. Swinburne

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1837-1909.
Poems. Autograph manuscript. [Oxford? ca. 1858-59?] 180 pages (on 91 leaves).
Octavo-sized notebook containing drafts of a number of short poems, many only partial; parts of a long drama in verse about the Borgias and Paolo Orsini; and the beginning of a prose story concerning flagellation, all probably written during the latter years of the poets's course of study at Oxford. Bound in flexible black morocco gilt. Gift of Edith S. Mayfield, 1984.

Great Expectations in the original cloth

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. [II-III] London: Chapman and Hall, 1861. Three volumes.
First edition, the true first printing of Dickens' only "three-decker." Bound in the original (much faded) violet cloth, lending library labels removed from the upper cover of each volume. Gift of Mary Ziegler Fockler, 1976.

Tom Sawyer

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.
The Aventures [sic] of Tom Sawyer. Autograph manuscript. Hartford, 1873-76, ca. 900 leaves.
The original manuscript of Twain's novel, as sent for type-setting to the printer of the American first edition, including as a final afterthought in September, 1876, the wording for the book's dedication. Gift of Mrs. Nicholas F. Brady, 1934.

Liszt's virtuosity

Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886.
Mephisto Polka. Copyist's manuscript, signed. [Weimar, 1883] 18 pages.
Apparently the final working draft of the Polka (a companion piece to the more famous "third" Mephisto Waltz published with it), with numerous autograph corrections and a virtuosic "ossia" part invented for the right hand nearly throughout. Signed and inscribed by the composer to one of the most devoted, if least talented, of his students, Fräulein Lina Schmalhausen, on the first page. Gift of Leon Robbin, 1996.

"Progress is the victory of a new thought. . ."
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1815-1902.
The Woman's Bible. Part I. The Pentateuch. [Part II: Judges, Kings, Prophets and Apostles.]

New York: European Publishing Company, 1895-1898. Two volumes. First edition of this controversial attempt to overthrow the political and domestic subjugation of women as based on Biblical texts. Bound in the original paper wrappers, the bookplate of Margaret F. G. Whitney mounted on the cover of the second part. The first part is inscribed on a front binder's blank by Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "June 25, 1898 / Progress is the victory of a new thought, over an old superstition." Acquired from an undetermined source prior to 1970.

The Versailles Treaty, inscribed
Allied and Associated Powers (1914-1920). Conditions de paix. Conditions of peace. [Paris? s.n., 1919] Proof copy (upper wrapper stamped "Epreuve" with a numeral 5 added by hand) of the text of the Treaty of Versailles. With the separately printed Summary laid in at the back. Bound in the original paper wrappers. Autographed on the title leaf by four of the five original members of the Comite de Redaction (Central Drafting Committee), May 6, 1919, comprising Henri Fromageot (France, chairman), J. B. Hurst (British Empire), H. Nagaoka (Japan), and James Brown Scott (USA). Gift, together with the papers of James Brown Scott, of Eleanor Finch, 1968.

Partly unread in the original wrappers
Joyce, James, 1882-1941. Ulysses. Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922. First edition of the novel which effectively reshaped the future of serious English literature. Copy #602 of 1,000 (one of 750 on handmade paper). Bound in the original blue paper wrappers. In large part unopened (and therefore in large part unread). Purchase, 1972.

The original blocks
Ward, Lynd, 1905-1985. [ Gods'Man. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929]
A pair of the original wood blocks for the first of the artist's "woodcut novels," actually narratives without words produced by the process of woodengraving. Part of a gift by the artist's daughters of the complete set of blocks from which the signed, limited first edition of the novel was printed. Gift of Nanda Ward and Robin Ward Savage, 1998.

M. C Escher, printed by himself
Escher, M. C., 1898-1972, Dream (Mantis religiosa). Woodengraving, April, 1935, signed. One of the best-known and, to many, one of the most puzzling of the artist's early prints. This particular copy was the first print Escher sold in the United States, from his first show at the Whyte Gallery in Washington, D.C., a few years before World War It. Dated in the block. Signed in pencil at lower left and inscribed "Eigen druck" at lower right. Bequest of the original purchaser, Eric F. Menke, 1981.

The Heart of the Matter
Greene, Graham, 1904-1991.
The Heart of the Matter. Autograph manuscript. London, 1946-47, 175 pages.
The original draft of one of the author's most famous novels, presented by him to Catherine Walston and acquired with the entirety of Greene's letters to her and attendant manuscripts and other items. Purchase, 1990.