Browse Items (3712 total)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a movable is worth so much more. Pull the lever on this card to have the scientist scrub the kidney. This oral medication, besides treating urinary tract infections, also claims to treat rheumatism, gout,…

Dozens of magazine titles were sent to troops overseas. In this photograph, a GI takes a break from his work and enjoys a full-sized edition of Esquire. The Army regularly polled troops to determine what magazines were the most popular. Based on…

Joseph Dacus was a newspaperman and author in St. Louis during the 1870’s. In July of 1877, when a series of strikes known as “The Great Railroad Strike” swept across the nation, Dacus chronicled the events in St. Louis and later wrote this piece on…

Three years—1828 to 1830—saw the most prolific output ever by a lexicographer: Joseph E. Worcester. First came his abridgment of Johnson’s Dictionary. Converse then approached him to abridge Webster’s masterwork. Worcester declined, but when Converse…

The feisty Lyman Cobb became fixated on Webster’s many flip-flops in spelling—caused in part by Worcester’s influence in the 1829 abridgment, which contradicted Webster. Cobb’s marginal strictures in his copy of the 1828 Webster resulted in this…

One of the first and the most important of the detective “memoirs” in “yellow-back” form. This copy of a fragile book comes from the former, and extensive, detective fiction collection of Edward and Florence Kaye of New York. According to…

Illustrated. 8vo, full blue levant morocco; gilt tooled paneled back, sides decorated with a wide border of [Aldine] gilt tooling with small panels containing gilt-tooled fish, etc… doublures of dark blue levant morocco, fly-leaves of dark blue…

4to. No. 475 of 500 copies on Riccardi Paper. A magnificent binding by Riviere and Son in full dark blue crushed morocco. Boards and spine with a dense gilt-pointelle ground with onlays of red, orange, green, and blue morocco in an elaborate art…

Anyte of Tegea (Ἀνύτη Τεγεᾶτις) was an Arcadian poet of the 4th century BC and described as the female Homer by Antipater of Thessalonica, a 1st century literary critic. This little book prints the original Greek text of her 25 surviving fragments,…

This dazzling silver book cover was designed and modeled by Lilian Simpson, a young artist who studied at the National School of Art in South Kensington (later the Royal College of Art) under the French-born sculptor Édouard Lantéri. The theme of the…