Dartmouth Rose

The Dartmouth College Library is delighted to announce the addition of an important manuscript to its holdings: a richly illuminated copy of the Roman de la Rose created in Paris between 1300 and 1325.

The Roman de la Rose is arguably the most important literary text produced in France in the middle ages. Much more than just an allegory for the pursuit of carnal love, the Roman de la Rose very quickly became one of the most popular and far-reaching texts of the Middle Ages.  This particular manuscript was produced only a few decades after the completion of the poem making it an important source for medievalists at Dartmouth and elsewhere.

In recent years, Rauner Special Collections has added three significant medieval secular manuscripts to its collections: The Brut Chronicle (England, ca 1425) and a fragment of the Chronique anonyme universelle (France, 1461), and Boccaccio’s L’Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (Italy, ca 1450).  All three of these manuscripts have been heavily used in Dartmouth classes and have attracted world-renowned scholars to do work in Rauner Library.  They have helped to fill an important gap in Rauner’s holdings by adding secular historical manuscripts to the collections.  The Roman de la Rose adds a new literary text to the holdings and cements Rauner Library’s importance in the realm of medieval scholarship.  Most importantly, it now provide students, faculty, and visiting researcher at Dartmouth the opportunity to work with a truly remarkable set of manuscripts.

The manuscript has been scanned and is available digitally through the Roman de la Rose Digital Library

A Classic Tear Jerker

John P. Jewett knew he had a runaway bestseller with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (Boston: J. P. Jewett, 1852), and he was determined to sell the book like no book had ever been sold before. He commissioned noted poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier to write a poem that could be set to music based on the emotionally charged death of Little Eva.  It began "Dry the tears for holy Eva!"  The song became a sheet music bestseller, and Jewett saw another opportunity to market the book: a printed handkerchief to help readers dry their tears.

Framing the image of Little Eva teaching Uncle Tom in the garden is a decorative border touting the novel's record setting sales: "Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is a Picture of American Slavery, not overdrawn, since Southern Publications themselves give as facts accounts of characters and incidents fully matching any thing this work presents--115,000 copies or 230,000 vols. have been sold in 6 months."

This marketing artifact is a perfect complement to our presentation copy first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Ask for Rauner Val 816 St78 X711 to see the first edition.

Middleton Quarto

It doesn't look like much, but then, it wasn't supposed to.  This unassuming book is a quarto edition of Thomas Middleton's The Spanish Gipsie (London: Printed by I.G. for Richard Marriot, 1653).  In the 16th and 17th centuries, most plays were seen by printers as ephemeral materials, and they issued them as inexpensive quartos, loosely stitched together with flimsy paper covers. If a reader of a play decided to keep the cheap publication, he or she would usually bind it together in an assemblage of plays collected over a period of time.  In the 19th century, collectors broke up these assemblages and had them individually bound--often in very expensive bindings expressing the new importance society placed on these publications.

This first printing of one of Middleton's plays somehow managed to escape being stripped of its original paper wrapper and survived to the present day with cover intact.  It is now a perfect example of the way plays by Rowley, Middleton, and Shakespeare appeared to their first readers.

You can see this extraordinary survival by asking for Rare PR2714.S7 1653.

Washington Didn't Sleep Here

To the best of our knowledge, George Washington never graced the plains of Hanover, but we do have a relic associated with him: a lock of his hair bound into John Marshall's The Life of George Washington (London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1804-1807).  This particular copy was "extra illustrated" by a collector, meaning that the original book was disbound, interleaved with additional material such as illustrations from other sources or manuscript materials associated with events described in the book, then rebound.  The collector's prize, a documented lock of Washington's hair, was framed into the binding of the first volume.

This is not the only lock of hair in the collection.  Others can be found within manuscript collections and an extra-illustrated edition of Samuel Picard's Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1894) has a lock from the graying poet.

While the hair is an interesting fetish object, our collections also hold original Washington material of high scholarly value.  MS-1033 contains original correspondence, a mathematical exercise attributed to a 13-year-old Washington, as well as a copy of Washington's Valley Forge announcement to the people of Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

To see Washington's hair ask for Rare E312.M34 1804 v.1; to see the manuscripts, request MS-1033.

We're All Mad Here

"'In that direction,' the Cat said, waving it's right paw round, 'lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, 'lives a March Hare.  Visit either you like: they're both mad.'"  Confronted with this statement, Alice decides to visit the March Hare as "perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad - at least not so mad as it was in March."  Unfortunately for her, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter are having tea together and proceed to add to the confusion of the adventure by informing Alice that her hair "wants cutting" and by posing questions such as "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland have been illustrated by many artists, starting with John Tenniel and including Peter Newell, Arthur Rackham, and Barry Moser.  Pictured here is Moser's interpretation of the Hatter - the final published print and the original wood block.  His Hatter is a somewhat more sinister character than that depicted in Disney's 1951 film adaptation and one can believe that this gentleman has absorbed enough mercury to become "mad as a hatter."

Ask for Presses P372c to see the Pennyroyal Press edition illustrated by Barry Moser.  The original blocks for Alice and other Moser books can be found in one of our manuscript collections, ML-39.   A finding aid is available.

And of course, we can't forget Alice herself.

Male Gaze, Male Money

Ambroise Vollard. Pablo Picasso. Honoré de Balzac. Three men. Three artists. Together they created an intriguing artifact. Balzac wrote Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu. Vollard commissioned Picasso to illustrate the text.

About art and artists, the story, the men, and their collaboration reveal interesting aspects of their personhood and their craft. Examine for yourself the de luxe Vollard production. The smooth morocco binding, the textured, thick paper, and the choices made by Picasso in his visual depictions done by woodcuts and engravings all suggest an engagement with the text that reveal men in their time and their class.

There are 13 leaves of plates with original engravings by Picasso. In addition, there are many woodcut illustrations by Picasso.

Ask for Rauner Rare Book PQ 2163.C4 1931

Vertebrae

Media: Beet juice, drawing, graphite, hand cutting, inks, mono-printing, painting, pastel, pencils, tumeric, xylene ink transfer, and other media. "Inset on the inside back cover are a row of Datura stramonium seeds... poisonous and psychotropic."  Goodness, what are we adding to the collections?

Organik's artist's book, Vertebrae (Brooklyn: Artichoke Yink Press and Organik, 2009) came to Dartmouth as a result of a class visit from book artist Marshall Weber last Spring.  After presenting books offered by the Booklyn Artists Alliance to a book arts workshop class, we asked the class what book they would buy if they were responsible for building the collections.  The overwhelming choice was Vertebrae, a book that presents "the intersection of human and plant form" through a collage of organic materials.

The book provides a perfect juxtaposition with our tremendous collection of historical anatomies.  Ask for Rauner Presses A778orve to experience this unique book.