Get up close and personal with material culture in this special collaborative Behind the Bookcase tour! This program will bring some of the beautiful and bizarre items that make up the over 1 million objects of the Winterthur Library collection to the Rosenbach. 

Get up close and personal with material culture in this special collaborative Behind the Bookcase tour! This program will bring some of the beautiful and bizarre items that make up the over 1 million objects of the Winterthur Library collection to the Rosenbach. 

Capping off our year of Jane Austen seminars to commemorate the author’s 250th birthday, we’ll finish with her most beloved novel, Pride and Prejudice, led by Louise Curran from the University of Birmingham, UK.

We will read and discuss Pride and Prejudice in all its simple and complicated glory, thinking about its depiction of courtship and marriage, its structure as the archetypal romantic comedy, and its place within Austen’s literary career. 

This American history book club is a partnership of Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Sessions meet variously at Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach; check individual program descriptions for details. At least one book club session in the season will include a presentation of rare collection materials related to the themes and topics under discussion during the meetings. 

Come study Emily Dickenson’s letters in her own writing, re-examine the first editions of her works, and learn how her first editors reshaped her poetry to fit their own conceptions. We’ll explore the myth of the Belle and learn more about the Modern Emily. 

Portrait miniatures originated in 16th century Europe, where these small, hand-painted likenesses were designed to be portable and personal keepsakes. They were tokens of affection, mementos of loved ones, and status symbols. Painted on vellum or ivory, they were often framed with precious metals and jewels like cameos. The tradition continued until the advent of photography in the mid-19th century.   

In “DEAR JOHN,” a special exhibition in the Rosenbach’s Treasures: History of the Material Text gallery, artist John Wind takes inspiration from this tradition but shifts the emphasis from the subject to the frame—concocting elaborate, exuberant compositions that provide a more modern take on the genre. 

Make your own Portrait Miniature in this in-person workshop. Bring a small photo or print of a favorite image (up to about 4”x5”) and Wind will provide all the other supplies needed to embellish and frame the image in a meaningful and personal way.  

Delancey Society members are cordially invited to enjoy cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and holiday cheer at the gracious home of Rosenbach Board Member Lenni H. Steiner.  

The Harlem Renaissance is the fulcrum for this look “behind the bookcase” at great Black writers. Beginning with Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first acclaimed Black poet after Emancipation, we’ll spend the bulk of our time with letters and first editions of poet Langston Hughes and philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke. 

• May 13, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• June 3, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• July 8, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• September 9, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• October 14, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• November 11, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

• December 9, 2025 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

This special book club season of The Ladies of the House of Love will begin with three iconic Gothic works, including one, Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), that Austen heavily satirizes in Northanger Abbey. Then, the club will explore lesser-known books that Austen references as “horrid novels” in Northanger. Finally, on December 9, 2025, just one week before Austen’s 250th birthday, the club will read Northanger Abbey and hold a birthday party for the Authoress.  Don’t miss this unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of the Gothic as part of a community of fellow book lovers and Janeites!

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, we honor her alongside the remarkable women novelists of the 18th and 19th centuries who reshaped literature and claimed their place in history.

This holiday season, help the Rosenbach and the Winterthur Library mark the 250^th birthday of Jane Austen with a Pride & Prejudice-themed tea party in the parlor and dining room of the historic Rosenbach townhome on beautiful Delancey Place in Philadelphia!  

This American history book club is a partnership of Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Sessions meet variously at Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach; check individual program descriptions for details. At least one book club session in the season will include a presentation of rare collection materials related to the themes and topics under discussion during the meetings. 

Celebrate the holiday season in the style of Charles Dickens: with good fellowship, music, and punch!

In this three-part yoga series, we’ll explore her life and work through movement, breath, and reflection. Each session will weave selected poems into a gentle and meditative yoga sequence, inviting you to embody Dickinson’s themes of solitude, transformation, and wonder. Attendance of Session 1 is not required to join upcoming sessions. 

• January 13, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• February 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• March 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• April 7, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• May 12, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Step into the shadows of history with “Mad” Women. Over the course of five months, we will uncover richly imagined stories based on real figures or inspired by historical events—women imprisoned, executed, or exiled under the guise of madness or moral corruption. These aren't just tales of guilt or innocence. They are stories about women whose truths were too complex for the world to bear. Expect rich discussion, challenging themes, and a space to question everything you've been taught about madness and morality. 

In this course, we'll explore this stylistic and psychological masterpiece. Each session will include some relevant background, but our discussions will be guided by the interests of our participants. Likely topics will include gender, history, cities, war, time, trauma, power, sexuality, and family.  

As Melville moved between historical fictions of the late-18th century and portraits of America in the 1850s, he fictionalized figures like Benjamin Franklin, rewrote the memoirs of sea captains and frontier lawmen, and captured with brutal precision and irony, elements of the American character that endure to this day. In the first three sessions of this course, we will cover one short work per week, reserving the last two sessions for the raucous satire of The Confidence-man, which Philip Roth described in 2016 as “the darkly pessimistic, daringly inventive novel” that speaks most directly to America today.  

This American history book club is a partnership of Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Sessions meet variously at Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach; check individual program descriptions for details. At least one book club session in the season will include a presentation of rare collection materials related to the themes and topics under discussion during the meetings. 

In this course, we will look together at these lithographs to examine Dalí’s unique take on the misadventures of the knight errant Don Quixote and his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza, exploring such topics as the magical potential of madness and the transformative capacities of the imagination.

Readings from British Biography: A Reader  will inform course discussion on what makes a biography comparable in some ways to the novel and in others to works of history and literary criticism.

Over the course of four biweekly meetings we’ll read some of Johnson’s most important works—essays, poems, fiction, travel narratives, biography—and selections from Boswell’s Life. The focus will always be on the humanity of the man behind the works.  

The sewn boards binding developed by Gary Frost is a modern version of one of the earliest forms of the codex. This structure has been used to rebind books as a library binding and as a limited-edition binding for new artist works. The book opens flat and is a great structure for beginning bookbinders. In this class, you will learn to make this unique book, which can be a notebook, a sketchbook, a gift, or a model for additional handmade books. 

• January 13, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• February 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• March 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• April 7, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• May 12, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Step into the shadows of history with “Mad” Women. Over the course of five months, we will uncover richly imagined stories based on real figures or inspired by historical events—women imprisoned, executed, or exiled under the guise of madness or moral corruption. These aren't just tales of guilt or innocence. They are stories about women whose truths were too complex for the world to bear. Expect rich discussion, challenging themes, and a space to question everything you've been taught about madness and morality. 

This is the adventure of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy—The Golden Compass (UK title: Northern Lights), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. These books are not only international bestsellers, they have been adapted for film, stage, graphic novels, and other media. In this course, we will read these books in community, following their many paths and considering their literary inheritance. 

This immersive weekly course will help readers explore (and enjoy) the intricacies, enigmas, and hilarities of Ulysses. First-time readers of the novel will find many resources for understanding this challenging work. For those returning to the novel, this will be a great way to delve into a book whose depths never seem to end.

This American history book club is a partnership of Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Sessions meet variously at Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach; check individual program descriptions for details. At least one book club session in the season will include a presentation of rare collection materials related to the themes and topics under discussion during the meetings. 

In this hands-on class, you will learn to create dynamic booklets of your own, from the humble pamphlet to a single-sheet book to the French door zine. No prior zine-making experience is required. 

This book is more than a romance, more than a slice of history brought to life— it’s a detailed demonstration of how individuals of art and wit can preserve their agency in eras when it’s under attack from oppressive societal forces. In close reading, we will explore the lasting power of Stendhal’s vision and the legacy of The Charterhouse of Parma. 

• January 13, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• February 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• March 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• April 7, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• May 12, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Step into the shadows of history with “Mad” Women. Over the course of five months, we will uncover richly imagined stories based on real figures or inspired by historical events—women imprisoned, executed, or exiled under the guise of madness or moral corruption. These aren't just tales of guilt or innocence. They are stories about women whose truths were too complex for the world to bear. Expect rich discussion, challenging themes, and a space to question everything you've been taught about madness and morality. 

This American history book club is a partnership of Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Sessions meet variously at Carpenters’ Hall and the Rosenbach; check individual program descriptions for details. At least one book club session in the season will include a presentation of rare collection materials related to the themes and topics under discussion during the meetings. 

Do you love discovering fascinating stories from history? Have you ever wanted to get up close and personal with museum and library collection objects, including rare books, manuscripts, paintings, and decorative arts? If so, then let the Rosenbach become your laboratory for study.   

This course will explore this theme in three plays: the perfectly formed comedy As You Like It, the searing tragedy King Lear, and the graceful romance The Winter’s Tale. Along the way, we will discover that the virtues of the green world speak especially powerfully to us today in a time of division and disruption in both the social and the natural environments.  

• January 13, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• February 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• March 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• April 7, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• May 12, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Step into the shadows of history with “Mad” Women. Over the course of five months, we will uncover richly imagined stories based on real figures or inspired by historical events—women imprisoned, executed, or exiled under the guise of madness or moral corruption. These aren't just tales of guilt or innocence. They are stories about women whose truths were too complex for the world to bear. Expect rich discussion, challenging themes, and a space to question everything you've been taught about madness and morality. 

Beginning with Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on Horacio Quiroga—who adapted Poe’s gothic intensity and psychological suspense to the jungles and borderlands of the River Plate and Misiones—this course traces the evolution of the contemporary Latin American short story in English translation. We’ll read pivotal writers—Borges, Rulfo, Fuentes, García Márquez—and spotlight the vital contributions of women writers, including Rosario Ferré and Mariana Enríquez. 

In this five-session course, we will uncover some of the medieval influences upon Eliot’s most famous work, including selections from The Wasteland, Four Quartets, and Murder in the Cathedral. Along the way, we’ll investigate how and where he draws upon the Arthurian Grail cycle, Christian mysticism, and The Canterbury Tales.

Jewish activism before and during the American Revolution helped set the stage for the new United States’ Constitution. Paul Finkelman will discuss this important history of Jewish participation in the American Revolution. 

We’ll examine how William Davenant’s departures from (and additions to) Shakespeare’s original text transformed the tragedy for new audiences—and what these changes reveal about the play’s afterlife. 

Our course will take place across six sessions, with two weeks between each course, to guarantee ample reading time.

This five-week course offers an in-depth exploration of Anne Brontë’s life and works. The youngest of the Brontës, Anne is sometimes overshadowed by her elder sisters, whose works have achieved greater prominence in literature and culture. Yet Anne’s writing is no less powerful or profound, offering a unique voice unafraid to confront and represent the darker, more uncomfortable aspects of 19th-century culture. Through close reading, discussion, and consideration of the historical context of her two published novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), this course will explore what Anne had to say about morality, gender, class, religion and the struggle for independence. We will give particular attention to how and why Anne wanted to interrogate and challenge Victorian social conventions with clarity and courage.  

• January 13, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• February 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• March 10, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• April 7, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

• May 12, 2026 | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Step into the shadows of history with “Mad” Women. Over the course of five months, we will uncover richly imagined stories based on real figures or inspired by historical events—women imprisoned, executed, or exiled under the guise of madness or moral corruption. These aren't just tales of guilt or innocence. They are stories about women whose truths were too complex for the world to bear. Expect rich discussion, challenging themes, and a space to question everything you've been taught about madness and morality. 

On the 250th anniversary of Girard’s arrival in Philadelphia, join the Rosenbach for an afternoon seminar focused on the Bass Otis portrait and the story of Girard’s decision to cast his lot with the young American republic.