We recently acquired a packet of letters which will be added to our Roberts Brothers collection–an archive which compliments our extensive holdings of that publishing company’s books.  The letters date from 1884-1895, and are from the following correspondents:

Lyman Abbott (1835-1922, American Congregationalist, ordering “[Ernest] Renan’s Life of Jesus“)

Alexander Black (1859-1941, American author & reviewer, requesting books to review for the Brooklyn Times)

Gertrude Hall (1863-1961, American author, poet & translator; two letters)

Ernest Ingersoll (1852-1946, American naturalist & writer, related to his story “Sacred Spring”)

James Martineau (1805-1900, English minister, philosopher & author, regarding Hours of Thought)

Edward T. Roe (b. 1847, American lawyer & author, regarding a manuscript)

Flora L. Shaw (1852-1929, English journalist and author, thank-you note for royalties)

Reuben Gold Thwaites (1853-1913, American historical writer, two (2) letters, seeking “an Eastern publisher,” which accompanied his manuscript of Afloat on the Ohio; the book was eventually published by a Chicago firm, Way & Williams, in 1897).

Julius H. Ward (1837-1897, a letter written on behalf of a Japanese author, Mr. Nobuta Kishimoto, who had written a book on Christianity)

Jonathan Elukin speaks to his Guided Studies class about the transition of scroll to codex and manuscript to print in late medieval and early modern Europe using sources in the Watkinson.  Among the books on the table:

One of our copies of Liber Chronicarum (the “Nuremberg Chronicle”), published in 1493, which offers nothing less than a representative picture of geographical and historical knowledge on the eve of Columbus’s voyages and the expansion of Europe into the western hemisphere.

Many of the illustrations, such as the two-page view of Jerusalem, were based on the most recent reports of travelers (usually merchants).

For those students and faculty who wish to read this book and do not know Latin, we have just acquired the first two volumes of an excellent new translation, which will make this landmark book accessible to all undergraduates.