Rare
Rare contains roughly 7,900 books, including 3-D artists' books. The rare collection was built mostly via donations from alumni/alumnae, faculty/staff and patrons. The collection contains two incunabula (item produced before the 16th century). Additionally, approximately 500 books from the collection were published before 1800.
The majority of the "rare" collection consists of literature, especially late 19th and early 20th century. The top 6 most represented authors within the collection are: William Dean Howells, Sherwood Anderson, Christopher Morely, Louis Bromfield, Jan Wahl, D.H. Lawrence and Mark Twain. In addition to its strengths in literature and poetry, rare also contains many books on politics and religion.
Additional authors represented within the "rare" collection include, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, J.M. Barrie, Lord Byron, Willa Cather, Julie Chen, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Theodore Dreiser, Paul Laurence Dunbar, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, Galileo, H.D., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, Christine Kermaire, Martin Luther King, Jr., Vince Koloski, Sinclair Lewis, W. Somerset Maugham, Iris Murdoch, Beatrix Potter, Ezra Pound, James Purdy, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Philip Roth, Carl Sandburg, Sigfried Sassoon, William Shakespeare, Robbin Ami Silverberg, Adam Smith, John Steinbeck, Booth Tarkington, Alfred Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Diane Wakoski, H.G. Wells, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats, among others.
Historical Collection Highlights
- [Book of Hours page] byCall Number: rare ND3363.A1C345Publication Date: [circa 1440]Rubricated, illuminated bar border on one side terminating in acanthus and ivy-leaf panels, painted in gold, red, blue, green, and pink. In latin, gothic script, circa 1440, Belgium.
- [Page from a book of hours] 15th century byCall Number: rare ND3363.A1C35Rubricated, initials in gold, red, and blue with tracery, colorful bar line endings. In latin, Gothic script, 15th century, France.
- [Biblia Latina : cum postillis Nicolai de Lyra, et expositionibus Guillelmi Britonis in omnes prologos S. Hieronymi et additionibus Pauli Burgensis replicisque Matthiae Doering]Call Number: rareovsz BS75 1485Publication Date: 1497BGSU Libraries own v.3 only, published 1497.
- Dialogo di Galileo Galilei ... Dove ne i congressi di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano; proponendo indeterminatamente le ragioni filosofiche, e naturali tanto per l'una, quanto per l'altra parte. byCall Number: rare QB41 .G13Publication Date: 1710"Lettera ... alla granduchessa di Toscana" (with special t.-p.): 1 l., 35 p. at end. "Lettera del r.p.m. Paolo-Antonio Foscarini": p. 36-68. "Perioche ex introductione in Martem Joannis Kepleri": p. 69-74. "Excerptum ex Didaci a Stunica salmanticensis commentariis in Job, editionis tolotanae, ap. Joannem Rodricum, anno 1584. in 4. pag. 205. & seq. in haec verba cap. 9. vers. 6. Qui commovet terram de loco suo, & columnae ejus concutiuntur": p.74-76
- A midsummers nights dream byCall Number: rareovsz PR2751.A3 M5 1664Publication Date: 1664This is one of three third folio excerpts held. The others include: Love's labour's lost and The life of King Henry the Fifth : the first part of King Henry the Sixth.
- A vindication of the rights of women: with strictures on political and moral subjects byCall Number: rare HQ1596 .W6 1792Publication Date: 1792
Contemporary Collection Highlights
- Where do we go from here: Chaos or community? byCall Number: rare E185.615.K5Publication Date: 1967First edition, signed by author.
- The North American book of the dead : part 1 and 2 byCall Number: rare PS3562.E9257 N67 1965Publication Date: 1965
- Hours of idleness: a series of poems, original and translated byCall Number: rare PR4363.A1 1807Publication Date: 1807
- Winesburg, Ohio: a group of tales of Ohio small town life byCall Number: rare PS3501.N4W5 1919cPublication Date: 1919