LitReactor: the supplemental material

uispeccoll:

Today is Shakespeare’s birthday!!! Featuring the Bard’s sonnets seems to me, a perfect way to begin wrapping up National Poetry Month!
This lovely collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets is actually a forgery! If you tuned into the Shakespeare Livestream last April, you may remember this little book. If not, Professor Adam Hooks has written a wonderful blog post about how he discovered that this book is an altered version of A Collection of Poems published by Bernard Lintott in 1709. In brief, that title page in not a title page at all! It was originally signature L–the initial at the bottom of the page was scrubbed out to create a title page.
Athough it is a fake, made even further obvious by the type and paper, this book is still lovely. The tree calf binding is stunning and the vignette and book plates are equally charming. Shall we compare this book to a summer’s day? It is certainly more lovely and temperate than an Iowa summer’s day!
-Jillian
PR2848 .A2 1700
P.S. Don’t forget to look at Adam Hooks’s longer post on Shakespeare Forgeries!
P.P.S. Yesterday’s Livestream video!

uispeccoll:

We’re back! Shakespeare’s birthday week is returning and so is our Livestream with Adam Hooks, Assistant Professor & Shakespeare scholar from the University of Iowa Department of English, and Colleen Theisen Outreach & Instruction Librarian from Special Collections.
Now is your chance to ask us anything. Ask Professor Hooks your burning questions about Shakespeare or being a Shakespeare scholar! Ask Colleen about librarianship or teaching with these materials. Also on hand will be historic, unusual, beautiful, and forged editions of Shakespeare’s works from Special Collections that we’ll be showing and telling stories about LIVE!
Start thinking of your questions and tune in Wednesday, April 22nd.
When: 11AM-1PM Central
Where: The Internet - LIVE

uispeccoll:
Miniature Monday!
Here is a miniature re-print of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published by Plum Park Press. This is a 2011 re-print of the 1907 Heinemann edition, which featured intoxicating illustrations by Arthur Rackham.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Texas: Plum Park Press, and Imprint of Ton Firman binding, 2011. Charlotte Smith Miniature Collection, PR4611A73 2011.
See it in the catalog
See all Miniature Monday posts
-Laura H.

uispeccoll:

Not all of the items in Special Collections are particularly old, but they are all pretty amazing.
Pictured above is a collector’s edition of Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. This book was personally signed by the author and also contains an inscription addressed to Loree Rackstraw, a long-time friend of Kurt Vonnegut’s with whom he also had a brief romantic relationship. These two friends met when Vonnegut first began teaching at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and remained close until Vonnegut’s death in 2007.
If you are interested in learning more about the relationship between Loree Rackstraw and Kurt Vonnegut, feel free to check out Love as Always, Kurt, a memoir published by Rackstraw in 2009.
-Kelly
Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s cradle Norwalk, Conn. : Easton Press, c2000.
Special Collections x-Collection PS3572.O66 C3 2000

uispeccoll:

Old binding vs new binding - which one do you prefer? Brittle and beautiful or sturdy and simple? [xAP3 L7] #uiowa #specialcollections #libraries #bookbinding #bookcovers #london #londonmagazine #brittlebooks #18thcentury

uispeccoll:

American Civics textbook from 1920, delicately encased in a lace cover.
See it in the catalog: http://infohawk.uiowa.edu/F/?func=find-b&find_code=SYS&local_base=UIOWA&request=007471554

uispeccoll:

uispeccoll:
Miniature Monday! Large and small! This 1904 set of William Shakespeare’s Complete Works, comes with its own miniature sized shelves, and is hanging out with it much older and larger relative (and our most frequently requested book for class sessions here at Iowa), our copy of Shakespeare’s second folio.
David Bryce and Son, Glasgow, 1904.
Just bringing back one of our favorite Shakespeare posts to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday week.

uispeccoll:

Happy Birthday to James Joyce who would have been 132 today! Above is a portrait of Joyce for the title page of the artist’s book Epiphanies produced by Vincent Fitz Gerald & Co. and Wild Carrot Press (copy 46 of 50). Also featured is our copy of the first edition of Ulysses printed by Shakespeare & Co. in 1922.
Cheers!
Jillian P.

uispeccoll:

From our Charlotte Smith miniature book collection, “Silver” by Andre Kundig of Switzerland. [uncataloged] #miniaturebooks #libraries #uiowa #specialcollections #switzerland #books

uispeccoll:

For pesquetet by request who wanted medieval animals, especially if not quite realistic. (Sorry not perfectly in focus).
This is post medieval, somewhere around 1500-1515, but I present you some lions.
Enjoy.
Sancti Bonave[n]ture, doctoris seraphici Breviloquiu[m] theologie quo omnis laus. magistro Iohanne Gerson teste: longe inferior est. [Paris] Iehan Petit, ca 1515. See it in the catalog.

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