The Long Lives of Very Old Books
August 19 – December 30, 2023
Explore the stories behind books published by Europeans between the mid-fifteenth and late-seventeenth centuries, tracing them from printing houses into the hands of generations of collectors and bookbinders and, ultimately, modern research libraries like the Ransom Center. Visitors will encounter a number of exceptional objects, including a Don Quixote that has been annotated by a class-conscious reader and all three of the Center's copies of the Shakespeare First Folio, which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. Other notable volumes among the more than 150 on display are a Bible that purportedly traveled to New England on the Mayflower, a geographical encyclopedia in Greek that made its way from the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice into the Islamic world, a group of playbooks implicated in a series of high-profile thefts, and a sixteenth-century book that a Harvard undergraduate started to use as his personal diary in the late 1960s.
Drawn almost exclusively from the Center's own collections, objects in the exhibition testify to the value of treating early books as historical artifacts, of moving beyond their printed content to evidence of how they were originally made, who owned them, where they’ve traveled, and how they’ve been read, used, abused, and altered over the centuries. Looking carefully at particular copies of the books that survive offers glimpses into the lives of people who have come before us, glimpses that can help us develop new narratives about the past and better understand our own values today.
Explore Selected Items
-
Survival
Auisi notabilissimi intorno al progresso della religione Catholica (Milan: Stefano d’Oriens, 1588)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
BX 1492 A95 1588Read a short essay by former Ransom Center Fellow, Dr. Freddy Domínguez
The Seven champions of Christendom (London?: s.n., ca. 1700?)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
PR 3291 A1 S484 1600z HZF
-
Variation
William Shakespeare’s The life and death of King Richard the Second (London: John Norton, 1634)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 896 PFZ
William Shakespeare’s The tragedy of King Richard the Second (London: Matthew Law, 1615)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 895 PFZ
John Marston’s The malcontent (London: William Aspley, 1604)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 659 PFZ
The arte of English poesie (London: Richard Field, 1589)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 12 PFZ
Stephanus of Byzantium’s Περι Πολεων / De urbibus (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1502)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
2022 24 -q-
-
First Folios
William Shakespeare’s Comedies, histories, and tragedies (London: William and Isaac Jaggard, Edward Blount, John Smethwick, and William Aspley, 1623)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
-q- Pforz 905 PFZ
-
Marking
Hartmann Schedel’s Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg: Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 1493)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
-o- Incun 1493 S3 Copy 3
William Fulke’s The text of the New Testament of Jesus Christ (London: Christopher Barker, 1589)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
BS 2080 1589 Copy 1Read a short essay by former Ransom Center fellow, Dr. Jeremy Specland
Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (London: Joseph Streater, 1687)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
QA 803 A2 1687
John Milton’s A mask presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634 (London: Humphrey Robinson, 1637)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 714 PFZ
William Langland’s The vision of Pierce Plowman (London: Owen Rogers, 1561)
John Henry Wrenn Library
Thomas Nashe’s Have with you to Saffron-walden, or Gabriell Harveys Hunt is up (London: John Danter, 1596)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 763 PFZ
-
T.J. Wise
Leaf from James Shirley’s A pastorall Called the Arcadia (London: John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, 1640)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
61-4779f
Christopher Marlowe’s The famous tragedy of the rich jew of Malta (London: Nicholas Vavasour, 1633)
John Henry Wrenn Library
Wg M344 633f WRE Copy 2
-
Repair
Dante Alighieri’s La commedia (Foligno: Johann Neumeister and Evangelista, 1472)
Harry Ransom Center Book Collection
Incun 1472 D235d
William Shakespeare’s The famous historie of Troylus and Cresseid (London: Richard Bonian and Henry Walley, 1609)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Library
Pforz 898 PFZ
Tour the Exhibition
Take learning to another level and drop in for a tour of The Long Lives of Very Old Books. Public exhibition tours are held Tuesday through Friday at noon and Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Meet your docent guide in the south atrium inside the first-floor lobby. Plan your visit today!
Any views,
findings, recommendations or conclusions expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of
the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Ransom Center appreciates the generosity of our promotional partners: CultureMap, KUT 90.5 & KUTX 98.9, and Society Texas.