Abraham Lincoln’s “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg, delivered 150 years ago today, are memorialized on Lincoln Hall on the University of Illinois campus. One of the biographical panels on the Quad side of the building depicts the president as he spoke. Pictured as seating directly behind him, according to the manufacturer of the panel in […]
Non Solus Blog
Sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
November 19, 2013
A Birthday Card for Albert Camus
November 7, 2013
Albert Camus, the French novelist, playwright, journalist, philosopher and Nobel Prize winner was born on this day, November 7, one hundred years ago. This is a good occasion to highlight a small manuscript fragment from Camus’s 1951 essay L’Homme révolté (Paris: Gallimard, translated in English as The Rebel) which was recently re-discovered on the shelves […]
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library Invites Visiting Scholar Applications for 2014-15
November 1, 2013
The John “Bud” Velde Visiting Scholars Program The Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CALL FOR APPLICATIONS The Rare Book & Manuscript Library annually awards two stipends of up to $3,000 to scholars and researchers, unaffiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who would like to spend a month or […]
Frances Wolfreston: A Woman Reader of the Late Renaissance Revealed
October 28, 2013
A rare book is seldom dumb. If you know how to listen, it can speak volumes (pardon the phrase) about who owned it, why it was read and how often, where it was sold, what the purchase price was, when its binding was fitted, and so on. Take the Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s The Schoole […]
Exhibition: Life on the Moon opens with Lecture by Simon J. James
October 2, 2013
Professor James came all the way from the UK to deliver the opening lecture to Life on the Moon (and to see some H.G. Wells materials from our collections, of course). It was a great lecture and we had a great turnout. Thanks to everyone for coming out and checking out the lecture and the […]
Marcel Proust on Writing
July 22, 2013
2013 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann (Swann’s Way), the first part of Marcel Proust’s lengthy literary masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, also known as Remembrance of Things Past. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library is celebrating this milestone with an exhibition drawn from its renowned Proust […]
The Frozen Deep
February 8, 2013
Yesterday at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, first year MFA students in Theatre gathered to perform a reading of The Frozen Deep, by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. Tom Mitchell put together the text and Adam Doskey provided the introduction. This is just one of several events being held around the current exhibition of […]
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library Invites Visiting Scholar Applications for 2013-14
December 11, 2012
The John “Bud” Velde Visiting Scholars Program The Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CALL FOR APPLICATIONS The Rare Book & Manuscript Library annually awards stipends of up to $3,000 to scholars and researchers, unaffiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who would like to spend a month or more […]
Two Events to Celebrate the University Library’s 13-Millionth Book: The First Illustrated Japanese printed book!
September 24, 2012
Thursday, 27 September, 3pm in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library Tales of Ise, 1608: The First Japanese Illustrated Work of Literature A Lecture by Colin Franklin, author, bibliographer, and book-collector Colin Franklin is an important English collector of Asian materials, a bibliophile and the author of numerous books on printing history, including Exploring Japanese […]
First Illustrated Japanese Book Added as 13-Millionth Volume
September 24, 2012
Ise monogatari 伊勢物語 (Tales of Ise). Kyoto-fu (Saga): Suminokura Soan, with Nakanoin Michikatsu and Hon’ami Kōetsu, 1608. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has added its 13-millionth book, maintaining our status as the largest public university library in America. The 13-millionth volume is the Ise Monogatari of 1608, the first illustrated Japanese printed book. It is also […]