Research Collections at Trinity
New tales from the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin
The exhibition Ireland and the English Lake Poets continues in the Long Room of the Old Library this month, running until the end of May. Amongst literary treasures on show, the exhibition features a rare print of Killarney’s Lower Lake by Charles Hunt (after Andrew Nicholl). In this blog post, curator Dr. Brandon Yen explores the impression Killarney made on Wordsworth and his fellow writers. Continue reading “Wordsworth’s Killarney”
Robinson Crusoe is 300 years old today! Actually, the gentleman himself is older than that, as he was already a young man at the start of the book, but The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner was first published on April 25th, 1719. It was followed, later the same year, by The farther adventures of Robinson Crusoe; being the second and last part of his life, and of the strange surprizing accounts of his travels round three parts of the globe. (Rather appropriately, the first edition of the latter was printed at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, London.) Continue reading “300 years on a desert island!”
This post was written by Assumpta Guilfoyle and Louise Kavanagh, both in Collection Management, TCD Library.
On preparing an exhibition on banned books, we knew a certain amount about censorship in Ireland. After a bit more research on the topic it became clear that the banning system failed our now-renowned Irish writers, and denied the Irish public the right to read the very best of literature. The Censorship Board did not set out to ban so many books, but they ended up doing just that. We kept reminding ourselves that it was the 1920s, a Catholic country that was trying to revive its national identity, it was a complex time both at home and abroad. Benedict Kiely, banned, said a prohibition was ‘the only laurel wreath that Ireland was offering to writers in that particular period’. Continue reading “Banned books in Trinity College”
The saying says ‘never judge a book by its cover’, but sometimes the cover is so attractive you feel you just have to pick up the book. Of course, it’s always a disappointment if it doesn’t live up to its promise! A trend on Twitter in the past couple of weeks has been to post a book cover each day for seven days, with no explanations, and to challenge someone else each day to join in. Glucksman Library Special Collections & Archives at the University of Limerick invited us and I accepted. Here are the covers which featured in my responses: Continue reading “Judging books by their covers”
By Monica Sanchidrian and Christoph Schmidt-Supprian, Collection Management Department
Have you seen our online exhibition, Oscar Wilde: From Decadence to Despair? Making use of gorgeous images from rare photographs, trade cards, theatre programmes, and other printed works and manuscripts, it brings to life key moments in Wilde’s life. The Rosenthal collection of Wildeana, acquired in 2011 from the rare book dealer Julia Rosenthal, includes over 500 printed items by or about Oscar Wilde, his family and his friends. Many of them are first editions and/or inscribed copies, which makes them particularly valuable. Among these is a first edition of An ideal husband inscribed by Wilde to the book’s dedicatee, Frank Harris. Another rarity in the collection is a copy of the auction catalogue for the sale of Wilde’s possessions at his home in Tite Street at the time of his trial in 1895 – only four copies of this catalogue are known to survive. Continue reading “Wilde about Oscar”
