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Rare Books
| Contact | Phone | |
|---|---|---|
| Bruce Raeburn | 247-1835 |  |
| Jessica Jones | 247-1934 | |
A rare book is not necessarily old or monetarily valuable. Rather, it is a book with research or intellectual value that would be difficult or impossible to replace.
Special Collections' rare books unit preserves approximately 50,000 titles dating from a leaf of the Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1456) to recent first editions. These include a wide range of formats, from miniatures no larger than one inch high, to volumes forty inches tall; from five-hundred year-old books in as fine a condition as the day they were printed to twentieth-century first editions crumbing from the acidity of their paper.
Besides individual books, Special Collections houses book collections that bring together groupings of volumes on a particular topic. Subjects represented are broad, but areas of special interest are:
Topics
- Natural History
- The American Revolution
- American Travel Accounts
- British Shire Histories
- Nineteenth and Twentieth Century English Language Fiction
- Romanov Russian History and Travel
- Science Fiction and Fantasy
- The Steamboat Collection
- Swiss history
- Kelmscott Press publications
Authors Represented Include:
- William Faulkner
- Lafcadio Hearn
- Stendhal
- Robert Southey