A regular series of posts about specific items in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections
After the Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, many protesters of the new Soviet government left Russia, hoping for its fall. France was one of the more popular places for officers of the fallen anti-bolshevik White army, writers, artists, gentry, and intellectuals. Two…
Ex libris as an art form has been around for at least six centuries. It usually takes the shape of an ornate paper bookplate pasted on the inside of the cover and identifying the owner of the book in an…
Rediscovered recently during a cataloging project, this 16th century gem of a volume is Polydore Vergil’s Anglicae historiae (History of England) printed in Basel, Switzerland in 1534 by Johann Bebel. Vergil, an Italian historian, was commissioned directly by King Henry VIII…
The Walter Havighurst Special Collections is home to over 65,000 volumes, manuscripts and archives. Some of the volumes are rare, some are unique; all are special in some way. All of us who work in Special Collections develop attachments to…
