Today’s guest post is by Kate Duffy, a Collections Intern at the Rosenbach Museum & Library.Greetings, Rosen-blog readers! This post is full of commonplaces. But stifle your yawn! The word “commonplace” did not always carry connotations of triteness and cliché. For early modern Europeans, commonplaces were witty verses, notable observations, or other compelling turns-of-phrase. Here …
Upcoming Events
My First Bloomsday
Elyse Poinsett here, the official stand for the Special Events and Marketing hats at the Rosenbach. Most of you probably know me best as the voice behind our e-newsletter (sign up here!), facebook page, and Twitter feed. As a relatively new Rosenbacher, I was pretty overwhelmed by my first Bloomsday and I’ve decided to steal …
Fame & Food
It’s been a great news week for the Rosenbach. Just in case you missed it, here’s a link to the Philadelphia Inquirer story about our Gratz aquisitions, and here are links to the coverage by KYW and WHYY of our Today in the Civil War blog. Not too shabby. But never content to rest on …
First Folio
Our Librarian, Elizabeth E. Fuller, recently wrote up these notes about the upcoming sale of one of the last Shakespeare First Folios left in private hands: [Note-the image here is of the Rosenbach’s copy of the third folio!] ************* Sotheby’s recently announced that it will offer a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio at auction in …
when it rains…
The Sunday New York Times will have another Rosenbach-associated piece, this time about Ben Katchor’s opera The Rosenbach Company. The opera was commissioned by the Rosenbach in 2003, and performed at the Philly Live Arts/Fringe in 2004. If you missed it then, it’s being performed at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre in New York …
Check Us Out!
The news gods smile upon us today with this fantastic NYT Escapes piece by Curtis Sittenfeld. For a museum that has serious “visibility issues,” this is very welcome coverage. Thank you news gods! …and yes, there will be corrections. Most significantly–the Sendak collection is not an “acquisition.” We don’t own it. Mr. Sendak’s drawings are …
Elizabeth Bishop & Franklin
Farrar Fitzgerald, our extraordinary shopkeeper and Moore expert, came across a postcard in the Moore collection the other day that would have been appropriate for Ben Franklin’s birthday this week, but all the ruckus around the opening of our exhibition kept us from getting to this blog. The postcard is from Elizabeth Bishop to Moore, …
Blue Book’s Value
This story from the BBC web site confirms our suspicions that Ulysses has become the most “valuable” novel of the 20th century–meaning that copies of its first edition sell for more than any other novel. Some of the best work done on the history of the 1922 edition and the fate of its 1000 copies …
The Big Sleep
…saw The Big Sleep on Turner Classic Movies last night (the 1946 Howard Hawks version) and was mesmerized, not just by Bogart and Bacall, but by the presence of a rare book dealer at the center of the plot. It struck me as significant somehow that Chandler used a book dealer–that in the 30’s and …
Costume Workshop
Last Saturday we had a costume-making workshop in anticipation of next Saturday’s Bat Parade. There is now glitter throughout the museum, which makes our days all the more festive. Here’s a link to all the Dracula-fest events. Be sure to check out the pictures of last year’s parade–you’ll get a sense of the incredible puppets …