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.
For many centuries, Queer people have faced marginalization by mainstream society. Yet their obstacles have also given them unique perspectives on the human experience, and inspired important contributions to art, literature, politics, and social organizing. In this tour, we will meet Queer people from history, and consider how their diverse sexualities and identities shaped their lives and informed their work.
Venture boldly into Bram Stoker’s handwritten notes for Dracula (character and chapter outlines, chronologies, and more!) as Rosenbach staff explore what it took to create this (almost) inexorable villain.
Venture boldly into Bram Stoker’s handwritten notes for Dracula (character and chapter outlines, chronologies, and more!) as Rosenbach staff explore what it took to create this (almost) inexorable villain.
The Rosenbach’s collection holds some of the most beautiful and powerful lines ever written. We’ll look at and touch manuscripts and typescripts by Geoffry Chaucer, Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison. We’ll read aloud the work of some of the most creative minds to have put their thoughts down on paper, whether they used a quill, a pen, or a typewriter.
From the writings of Abraham Lincoln to the wartime letters of Col. Alexander Biddle of the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, to a Confederate children’s textbook, this tour provides a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of those who shaped and survived America’s worst conflict.
With a warm heart for human nature, a cold eye for the human condition, and prose that would awe a Biblical prophet, Herman Melville was too good for his time. Join us for an odyssey through The Rosenbach’s mighty Melville collection. We’ll chart our voyage toward the source of Melville’s greatness through early editions of his novels and handwritten letters. Then we’ll examine Melville’s legacy for modern times. All aboard as, in the words of Moby-Dick’s Ishmael, we “sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
Do you prefer to judge a book by its cover, or does the inside matter more? In this tour of book arts, we’ll take a look at various rare books in The Rosenbach collection, their aesthetics, their functions, how the processes in creating books inform how we use them today, and vice versa.
The Belle of Amherst. The recluse who lived a life of quiet passion. For a century the Emily Dickinson of public imagination was confined to the decorous hall of The Nineteenth Century Poetess–eccentric, but never improper. But Emily was far more audacious and lively, a woman whose adventurous art and challenging ideas continue to resonate today.