Month: June 2012
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Surprise Sketches
Today’s post again turns from the treasures in our special collections stacks to our general collections to provide a glimpse at a unique volume. As with the annotated Mussolini book from a few weeks ago, this item is not unique in the sense that it is the only known copy of a text but rather…
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Stokowski’s Podium
This week the Philadelphia Orchestra is commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of Leopold Stokowski’s appointment as music director with a series of concerts in the Academy of Music. In honor of the occasion, there will be an exhibit on display in the lobby of the Academy, featuring several items from the holdings of the Penn Libraries:…
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The Calve’s Head and Early Printing in Jamaica
Penn has one of the world’s best collections of printed material relating to Jonathan Swift and his work [1]. Within this collection is an unassuming pamphlet bound into a volume with other tracts relating to political controversies of Swift’s day: The *Calves’s-Head Club; or, a modest apology for Parson Alberoni, governor to King Philip, a…
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A Nineteenth Century Vision of Persia’s Past
Tucked away in the compact shelving on the 5th floor of Van Pelt Library is a real treasure – a 19th century Persian book entitled “Asar-i ajam”, or loosely, “Antiquities of the Persians” [ed. note: the book has now been moved to RBML]. The book was written by the well-known author Muhammad Nasir Fursat al-Dawlah…