Rare & Special Books

The Rare & Special Books Collection began in 1935 with the donation of Thomas B. Lockwood’s collection of rare books, which includes such significant publications as four 17th-century folios of William Shakespeare; first editions of Edmund Spenser’s Fairie Queene, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; works by fine presses such as Kelmscott, Doves, Roycroft, and Ashendene; and other collections including presidential signatures, ancient Greek and Roman coins, and drawings by William Blake.

Comprised of over 14,000 titles, the Rare & Special Books Collection also includes other historically significant editions, incunabula, modern first editions, Julian Park’s francophone collection, Joseph H. Brennan’s collection of metallurgical titles, a Gran Colombia collection, Frank A. Hartman’s ornithology collection, and the American Orthodox Catholic Alliance Collection.