Each tale in Les cent nouvelles nouvelles (Amsterdam, 1701) carries a fine half-page engraving after designs by Romeyne de Hooghe

The Art of the Printed Book

A great library must provide its users not only with texts and information, but with a reflection of the aspirations of craftsmen who present knowledge to us in visually pleasing forms. Many of our past benefactors have ensured that the work of the best printers, illustrators and binders is represented in the University Library’s collections; Samuel Sandars, with his love of books printed on vellum, is a pre-eminent example. The Friends have also presented to the Library specimens of fine book production, ranging from the incunables of the fifteenth century to the output of private presses of the twentieth. The recent bequest made through the Friends by John Dreyfus greatly enriches our holdings from modern American and continental presses.

Items on display

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 B.C.-8 B.C.), Opera, Venice, 18 September 1479 (Inc.3.B.3.16); Hymni per totum annum: item orationes dominicales, feriales, ac de sanctis, cum suis antiphonis & versiculis, Antwerp, 1601 (F160.c.6.3); Les cent nouvelles nouvelles, Cologne [Amsterdam], 1701 (7735.e.231-2); Henry Morris (b. 1925), Omnibus. Instructions for amateur papermakers, Newtown, Pa., 1967 (CCC.52.439); Poetry through typography, New York, 1993 (CCC.52.470); Diana Bloomfield, woodcut blocks for Evelyn Ansell, Twenty-five poems, c. 1963; Edward Topsell (bap. 1572, d. 1625), The historie of foure-footed beastes, London, 1607 (Syn.4.60.41). View exhibit captions.