On January 25, 1759, the poet Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. The anniversary of his birth is celebrated all over the world with scotch, songs, and poems by the prolific writer. Robert Burns holds a special place in the Rosenbach: our collection houses some remarkable early editions (including a stunning Kilmarnock edition that …
Celebrating History’s Unsung Creative Couples
On February 7, we opened a new exhibition celebrating the art and achievements of romantic couples, from the powerful royalty of the 16th century to cinema stars of Old Hollywood to local artists creating together today. Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art and History not only challenges the notion that creativity and authorship are solo endeavors, …
Happy Birthday, James Joyce … and Ulysses!
This post was originally published at the Free Library of Philadelphia blog. Nearly 100 years ago today, on February 2, 1922, bookstore-maven-cum-publisher Sylvia Beach stood anxiously waiting on the platform at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris for the arrival of some very precious cargo on its way from Dijon: two copies of …
Ducks and Doubles in Wonderland
This blog post was written by Andrew White Friends of Lewis Carroll faced unceasing peril of being turned into animals and absorbed into Wonderland—as the fate of Carroll’s friend Robinson Duckworth will attest. Duckworth was a fellow at Oxford’s Trinity College while Lewis Carroll’s real world avatar, Charles Dodgson, was mathematics lecturer at Christ Church …
Unwrapping Poe’s Mummy
When we think of Edgar Allan Poe, we think of his horror tales. His face is the icon of macabre fiction. And so when we see that he once wrote a tale about a mummy, we expect the full panoply of a monster story: Egyptian curses, the dead revivified, perhaps a monstrous beetle that devours …
Romance at the Rosenbach
Love is in the library: over the holidays, two visitors got engaged while on a tour of the historic house. Admittedly, some of us were in on the plan. One of our artistic staff members created a library display case with a copy of the bride-to-be’s favorite book, Jane Eyre, opened to the page with the famous line “Reader, I …
Winter reflections on the Year Without a Summer
Greetings from Frozen Philadelphia! After a snowy weekend and a lot of single-digit temperatures, we’re bundled up and back in the office. And as we shiver on our way to and from the museum, we’re thinking about some of our favorite authors, who shivered during an unseasonably cold summer 202 years ago. During the summer of …
Frankenstein200 at the Rosenbach
On January 1, 1818, the London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones published a book titled Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The publication did not name its author, but the book had an preface written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and a dedication to writer and philosopher William Godwin, so some readers assumed that the …
The Destruction of Nosferatu
On January 31, 2018, the Rosenbach will host a screening of the classic horror film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, with Frederick R. Haas accompanying the movie on the organ at Macy’s. Conceived as a companion program to our Frankenstein and Dracula: Gothic Monsters, Modern Science, this spooky cinematic event will give us a chance …
2017 Publications by Rosenbach Researchers
The Rosenbach makes its library and fine and decorative arts collections available for research by anyone. While approximately half of our researchers are traditional scholars, academic faculty, and graduate students, we also welcome younger students and their teachers, artists, writers, librarians, collectors, curators, dealers, and others with inquiring minds. You can make a research appointment …