Women novelists of the 19th and 18th centuries traveled different routes to find readership for their work. Some used male or deliberately ambiguous pseudonyms; others published anonymously before claiming their creations. Through early editions and manuscripts of Frances Burney, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and George Elliot, we will explore the ingenuity these immortal writers used to bring their masterpieces before the public.
Behind the Bookcase tours are sponsored by William and Anna Marie Petersen Registration Admission is $25. 50% off for Rosenbach members, free for the Delancey Society. Not a member? Learn more. This is an in-person program at The Rosenbach. Visitors are required to wear masks at the event. Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If (more…)
The game is afoot to ferret out the realm of detective and spy literature at The Rosenbach. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to explore early mystery stories, examine an original cypher belonging to a female Civil War spy, and exercise your sleuthing skills to detect a forgery.
When the RMS Titanic sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, it took with it Dr. ASW Rosenbach’s friend and collecting protégé, Harry Elkins Widener. Harry’s mother, socialite Eleanor Elkins Widener, turned to Dr. Rosenbach for help creating the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library at Harry’s alma mater, Harvard. Untangle the stories of the Wideners, the Rosenbachs, and the Titanic by viewing and handling rare documents relating to history’s most famous tragedy at sea.
Behind the Bookcase Tours offer unparalleled access to see, and even touch, rare and important items not usually on view to the public. Each program is dedicated to a different author, theme, or topic and grants a truly hands-on experience with materials in The Rosenbach’s inspiring collection.
Covering female poets from the 16th century to the 20th century, this tour highlights remarkable female poets in the Rosenbach collection, including Phillis Wheatley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Dickinson. Through manuscripts, and first editions of their writing, we will discuss their extraordinary ways of creating identities, adaptation to adversity, and breaking conventions through poetry.
This tour examines artifacts of the Gratz family of Philadelphia and asks how they learned the ways of this new world and made it their home. We’ll discuss how faith and revolution contributed to their story and how that story impacted the lives of their relatives and our museum’s founders, the Rosenbach brothers. Join us for this new addition to the Early Hebrew Books Behind the Bookcase series.
Put on your crown and come to The Rosenbach for a close look at some of the many royal relics in our collection. You will view and even handle documents written and signed by some of history’s most legendary queens—Elizabeth I of England, Mary Queen of Scots, and Queen Victoria—as well as other notable royals, including James I of England and Scotland.
In this program we’ll explore a wide array of holdings, including Bram Stoker’s handwritten notes for his gothic classic Dracula, correspondence from the iconic and incomparable Oscar Wilde, and, of course, one of our most famous holdings, Joyce’s manuscript of his Modernist masterpiece Ulysses.
In this program we’ll explore a wide array of holdings, including Bram Stoker’s handwritten notes for his gothic classic Dracula, correspondence from the iconic and incomparable Oscar Wilde, and, of course, one of our most famous holdings, Joyce’s manuscript of his Modernist masterpiece Ulysses.