Given that it is both Poetry Month and William Wordsworth’s birthday (his 146th) I thought it might be a good time to showcase a few Wordsworthian items from our small but fascinating collection of the poet. We have several letters from Wordsworth to Joseph Cottle, who published his Lyrical Ballads, but for this post I’ll …
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Dodgson Answers Revealed
Here are the answers from last week’s trivia-fest. 1) Which of the following words was NOT invented by Dodgson: Chortle Snark Galumph Telarian The answer is “telarian.” Both “chortle” and “galumph” come from Dodgson’s famous nonsense poem “Jabberwocky,” while a “snark” is a mysterious animal in his The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony in …
Mary Shelley Acquisitions
We’re delighted to announce that the Rosenbach has recently acquired a rare first edition (1818) of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, as well as first editions of Shelley’s novels Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), and Falkner (1837). These terrific additions to our collections of English Romantic …
Note to Philadelphia: Dickensians are Coming — Hide the Statue
So, West Philadelphia’s beautiful, urban Clark Park is home to the world’s only full-size statue of Charles Dickens. Why is the there only one such statue in this great big world of ours and why is it in Clark Park? Follow the link for a good, concise answer to that question. Perhaps this letter, part …