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Books
Rare Book & Special Collections Division
Bay Psalm Book
Stephen Daye
[The Bay Psalm Book]
Bound volume, 1640
This humble and well-worn hymnal was printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye, first printer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It is the first book printed in what is now the United States.
Known as The Bay Psalm Book, but really titled The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, it represents what was most sacred to the Puritans—a faithful translation of God's Word, to be sung in worship by the entire congregation. The same faith that compelled them to leave England and strike out for the New World prompted them to commit this text to print before all others.
The Library of Congress's copy of the Bay Psalm Book is one of eleven surviving copies and one of five remaining copies that are in their original bindings. It is missing the title page and eighteen leaves.
Treatment: Pages that had already become detached from the text block were mended and reattached. Weak sewing was reinforced and the front cover was reattached.
Pulp Fiction
During the 1860s, American reading habits changed radically with the introduction of paper bound series of popular fiction at a fixed, inexpensive price. Scorned by polite society, copyright deposit allowed the Library to accumulate nearly 40,000 of these often sensationalistic titles known as dime novels.
Treatment: Conservators sleeved each dime novel and then placed each volume in an archival storage box for support and protection from possible environmental dangers such as light, dust, and water.
Imperial Russian Pleasure Reading
Russian Imperial Collection
19th c.
This law book was among 2,600 volumes from the book collections of the Romanov family were purchased in the early 1930s by the Library through a New York book dealer. The collection includes 18th- and 19th-century documents, biographies, works of literature, and military, social and administrative histories. It reflects the reading interests of the imperial family and the types of publications they received as gifts.
Treatment: Conservators designed a custom box to allow full access to the volume as well as the seal, while keeping the components safely anchored at all times. The box lid is fitted with two linen-wrapped foam pads. They apply gentle pressure to the binding and skippet, keeping them immobile as the box is moved from its designated shelf space. A removable shelf allows the object to be removed from the box without exerting stress on the binding, skippet, tassels, and metallic cord.
Lincoln's Inaugural Bible
The Holy Bible, Oxford
[Lincoln's Inaugural Bible]
Bound volume
1853
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney , administered the oath of office to Abraham Lincoln using the Bible shown here. With the brief words, "I, Abraham Lincoln, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" Lincoln was sworn in as the sixteenth president. The ceremony was witnessed by Clerk of the Supreme Court, William Thomas Carroll, who recorded the occasion as above in the back of this Bible.
Treatment: The front cover of the velvet binding was mostly detached from the volume and the back cover was completely detached. Several loose pages were reattached using Japanese tissue paper and wheat starch paste. The binding was repaired with linen and the text block and binding were rejoined.
Helen Keller Bible
American Bible Society
[H. Keller Bible: The Book of Psalms in raised letters for the use of the blind]
Bound volume
1842
Helen Keller (June 27, 1880- June 1, 1968) lost her hearing and sight at 19 months of age. After special tutoring as dramatically portrayed in the film The Miracle Worker, Keller went on to lead a life of advocacy for the disabled. Through her writings and her political affiliations, she supported many progressive and liberal causes. Throughout her career her strong religious faith as guided by her Book of Psalms was evident in all her work.
Treatment: The rounded spine of this volume is three times thicker than the foreedge. Extra paper was bound into the spine to protect and compensate for the raised letter profile of each page. Book conservators reinforced the corners and loose board fragments of the binding by building up layers of paste, paper, and lab-made wood putty. Where needed, they inserted new leather that was dyed and grained to match the original binding. Paper conservators cleaned the textblock by vacuuming mold, and removing fly specks with a sharp blade under magnification. They mended tears and losses and added page guards of lightweight Japanese mending paper adhered with wheat paste starch. Each page was also deacidified to prolong the life of the book.
Consolidation of Medieval Manuscripts
MS.51
Book of Hours
Flanders
1494
16-C.
The condition of each Medieval Manuscript in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division was examined in conjunction with the publication of S. Schutzner's Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Books in the Library of Congress, Vol. I. Biblio, Liturgy, and Books of Hours. The majority of the manuscripts from the 12th C. to the 16th C. are on parchment folios and many have illustrations with mineral pigments and gold leaf. The style and application method of the pigments varies depending on the century and location of the scriptorium or monastery.
Treatment: Conservators treated only the manuscripts with actively flaking pigments in danger of permanent loss. Working under microscopic magnification, pigments which were separated from the parchment were reattached by carefully applying a drop of diluted gelatin or parchment size under the detached layer of pigmented image.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 1730?-1774:
Poems and plays.
Dublin, 1777.
Crompton, Richard, fl. 1573-1599:
L'authoritie et jurisdiction des courts de l majestie de la roygne.
London, 1594.
The Library of Congress is recreating Thomas Jefferson's library to celebrate the Library's Bicentennial on April 24, 2000. These books were titles among the 6,500 books in Thomas Jefferson's collection, which he sold to Congress in 1815 following a fire in the U.S. Capitol set by British troops during the War of 1812 using Library of Congress books as tinder.
Irish poet, dramatist and essayist, Oliver Goldsmith was one the major literary figures in mid to late eighteenth-century Great Britain. At its best, his prose, drama, and poetry are recognized as being some of the most individualistic and distinguished ever produced in the English language. This copy originally belonged to William Lowther (1757-1844), the first Earl of Lonsdale, and is in the John Davis Batchelder Collection, which was given to the Library of Congress in 1936. As is the case with this work, many of the books in the Thomas Jefferson Collection were purchased because of their connection with famous people. Crompton, Richard, fl. 1573-1599: L'authoritie et jurisdiction des courts de l majestie de la roygne. London, 1594. This copy belonged to Thomas Jefferson and came to the Library of Congress in 1815 at the purchase of Jefferson's private library. Thomas Jefferson trained as a lawyer, and his library contained a large number of legal works, many of which, as exemplified by this work, are significant and seminal works of jurisprudence. This is Crompton's chief work and the first English law book devoted exclusively to the Royal courts, L'authoritie is a guide to all the courts then in existence, from the court functions of Parliament to the smallest local and special courts. Additionally, it contains a number of circuit reports of criminal cases not printed elsewhere. It is also the first book printed by Charles Yetsweirt, who had received a Royal commission to be printer of law books.
Treatment: Both of these volumes had broken sewing and detached covers. They were disbound; the pages were washed and bathed in an alkaline solution. After drying and mending the pages, they were resewn and the volumes were rebound in their original covers.
Masterpiece of American Ornithology
John James Audubon
[Birds of America]
Drawings
1827-1838
This copy of the first edition of Audubon's "Masterpiece of American Ornithology" was transferred from the War Department to The Library of Congress early in the 20th century. It is a disbound set, complete with 435 elephant folio engraved plates, colored by hand, after original life-size watercolor drawings by the author. The plates were engraved by William H. Lizars (Edinburgh) and Robert Havell and Robert Havell, Jr. (London) and were printed on hand-made Whatman Turkey Mill Paper, with watermarks 1827-1838. From 1827 to 1830 the coloring of the plates was conducted by Robert Havell and his son, and after the father's death, Audubon and his son Victor supervised a team of colorists who highlighted the aquatint plates.
Treatment: Because of the condition of the items and their bindings, conservators disbound the volumes and folders so that they could lie flat in oversize map drawers. They humidified and flattened them to reduce creases and folding of the prints, allowing for easier access and safer storage.
Les Elemens de Chymie
Jean Béguin
[Les Elemens de Chymie]
Bound Volumes
1624
Béguin's clear and lucid chemical experiments and demonstrations of chemical techniques won him a large audience throughout France. He approached chemistry as the art of separating and recombining natural mixed bodies to produce safe medicines and herbal remedies. Béguin's book set the standard for French chemical textbooks and was not superseded until 1675 when Lémery's Cours de Chymie was published.
Treatment: Conservators disbound, drycleaned, washed and deacidified this second French edition of the immensely popular work. They mended pages using wheat starch paste and Japanese paper. Bookbinders resewed the textblock onto alum-tawed split thongs using linen thread. They used calfskin rebound the volume in a limp vellum binding.
Life of St. Cyprian
Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage
[Beatissimi Cecilii Cypriano Caaarthaginensiu..]
Bound volume
1512
This is a beautifully printed French edition of the collected works of St. Cyprian, a Father of the Church and martyr, who was beheaded in 258 A. D. St. Cyprian is remembered most for his writing favoring "readmission to the Christian community to those who in times of persecution had renounced Christianity." This is a fine copy printed by Berthold Rembolt in an open Roman type face, with the title-page illustrated with a woodcut printer's mark of two lions holding a shield, with Rembolt's "mark of four" and his initials. This copy is very well bound in full contemporary pigskin, decorated in blind, with remnants of the original clasps intact. This edition appears to be very rare in American libraries, with only The Library of Congress and The Folger Shakespeare Library recording copies. Bound with this title is Martyrilogium, a history of St. Cyprian's life and death, printed in Gothic type and published in 1508.
Treatment: The volume had been rebound early in the 20th century with an incompatible binding. Bookbinders therefore disbound the book, washed the pages to reduce staining and deacidified them. They then mended the pages and resewed the textblock using compatible thread and stitching. They rebound the book with a leather binding more appropriate to its age and heritage.
First Philippine Book
Rosenwald Collection
[Doctrina Christiana, en Lengua Espanola y Tagala]
Bound Volume
Manila
1593
The Montgomery Meigs collection contains over 11,000 items and varies greatly in content, including bound and unbound printed and handwritten materials, such as journals, drawings, paintings, photographs, memorabilia and many oversize maps, photographic images, and architectural plans. As a member of the Army Engineer Corp., Meigs was instrumental in a number of important federal building projects in Washington, D.C., including the Pension Building, the Washington Aqueduct, and the wings and dome of the U.S. Capitol.
Treatment: For Meigs's journals, conservators created a series of boxes to house three diaries each. They also built a special box to house 12 pocket diaries in slots designed specifically to the dimensions of each. They labeled each slot by year. Conservators flattened, mended, and encapsulated oversize foldouts from the journals, adding labels to indicate their original journal locations. They placed corresponding labels in the journals. They also encapsulated loose journal pages between buffered sheets and then boxed them.
Early Herbal
Dietrich Dorsten
[Botanicon, continente Herbarum]
Bound volume
1540
This first and only edition of this herbal was illustrated with 320 woodcuts in the text, all of which are colored by contemporary hand. The book is famous for its wood blocks, which were reused by many later publishers of illustrated herbals who were trying to avoid the enormous costs which went into the creation of original woodcuts. This copy of Dorsten's Botanicon is extremely well colored, demonstrating the care and skill which the 16th century colorist brought to the art of book making.
Treatment: The book was already in pieces and had been disbound. Conservators drycleaned the pages. They guarded and mended text pages using Japanese tissue paper and wheat starch paste. They attached new endpapers of handmade paper to the textblock and rebound it using double raised cords. They attached the binding to boards and lined the spine with cloth. To cover the binding,they used alum-tawed leather.
Delft Printing
Rosenwald Collection
[Leven Ons Heren Jesu]
Bound volume
1479
The Rosenwald copy of this very rare Delft printing of the Life of Christ is originally from the collection of early printed Dutch and Flemish books formed by the Dukes d'Arenberg, which Lessing J. Rosenwald purchased en bloc in 1956. It was printed by Jacques van der Meer & Mauricius Yemantszoen, who established the first press in the city of Delft. This work is printed in Gothic type and rubricated in red with large and small initial letters and paragraph and sentence marks. It is a very rare book; no other copy is to be found in the United States, nor is there a copy in the British or the Bodleian Library.
Treatment: Conservators drycleaned the book to remove surface dirt and grime. They washed and deacidified the pages and mended them where necessary, using Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. They sewed the folios together on three double cords. They covered the binding in alum-tawed goatskin with blind tooling and stamping on the spine.
Utopia
Thomas More
[Utopia: Written in Latin by Thomas More...Translated into English]
Bound volumes
1685
More's Utopia has long been recognized as one of the most important English books of the 16th century and today is considered a blueprint for the "ideal" society. In More's new world, man, nature and civil society exist as a harmonious commonwealth rather than a competitive marketplace. This, the second English translation of the work, is by Gilbert Burnet, the noted 17th- century clergyman and historian. It remained the standard translation until 1808 when Arthur Cayley published his Memoirs of More in two volumes.
Treatment: Conservators removed, washed, and reguarded the first and last five pages of the volume to provide support for sewing. They reattached the page segments to the binding and used new leather for the spine. They gold tooled the spine, (replacing the title), in a pattern similar to the original.
Anatomy of a Horse
Carlo Ruini
[Anatomia del Cavello
Infermita et suoi Rimedii
Opera Nuova]
Bound volume
1707
Carol Ruini is ranked among the founders of the field of comparative anatomy and a pioneer in the field of the circulation of the blood. Originally published in 1598, the then new edition was completely revised and expanded. It is well illustrated with woodcuts showing the anatomy of the horse, its skeletal and muscular systems, the circulatory system, and dissections of all the organs of the body. It is printed on thin paper with excellent impressions of the woodcuts.
Treatment: Bookbinders disbound the volume. They drycleaned all the pages before washing and deacidifying them. They used wheat starch paste and Japanese paper to repair pages They resewed the textblock onto linen cords using linen thread and bound it in goat skin with gold tooling for the title.
Seneca
Aldine Press
[Scenecae{!]Tragoediae]
Bound volume
1517
This First Aldine Press edition of the Tragedies of Seneca, edited by Hieronymus Avantius, was considered the authoritative text for nearly a century. While comparing previous printed texts to a Greek manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciani in Venice, Avantius made nearly 3,000 corrections, most of which passed the test of time. This copy is complete with the woodcut title-page of the Aldine Press printer's mark of the anchor and dolphin.
Treatment: The volume had been rebound early in the 20th century with an incompatible binding. Therefore, bookbinders disbound the book, washed the pages washed, to reduce staining and deacidified. They mended the pages and resewed the textblock using compatible thread and stitching. They rebound the book with a leather binding more appropriate to its age and heritage.
Rural Economy
Toner Collection
Arthur Young
[Rural Oeconomy, or Essays on the Practical Parts of Husbandry]
Bound volume
1776
One of the most important 18th century works on practical husbandry, it was reprinted numerous times in both England and America well into the 19th century. This copy is from the Toner Collection of Early American Imprints. Arthur Young was called "The Rural Socrates" by his contemporaries for his wisdom and guidance in the affairs of agriculture and husbandry.
Treatment: Conservators disbound the item, washed, and deacidified it.They dried the pages, mended any tears or breaks in the folios, and guarded them with Japanese tissue paper and wheat starch paste. They sewed the folios on to three raised cords and added a new headband. They attached new handmade paper endsheets and bound the book in full red goatskin. They applied gold tooling to label the book and added blind stamping for decoration consistent with the time period of the volume.
Miniature Madison
Charles Wilson Peale
James Madison miniature portrait
painting
1783
While a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1783, James Madison was engaged to marry Kitty Floyd. The young couple exchanged miniatures painted by Charles Wilson Peale. Alas, the gifts were returned to their original owners when Miss Floyd decided to end the engagement. The reverse of the Madison miniature is noteworthy for containing a locket of his hair. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division is also home for the Kitty Floyd miniature.
Treatment: Because of the fragile nature of this item, it was placed into a custom made box. The box was specially designed to cushion the item while providing easy access for viewing and photographic reproduction.
Unknown Indulgence
William Caxton
Six titles bound in one volume
Mirror of the World [1481]
The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers
[about 1479]
Cicero. De Senectute [English],
De Amicitia [English]
Bonaccursius de Montemagno.
Declamation of Noblesse [1481]
Cordyale. The Four Last Things [1479]
Rosenwald Collection
William Caxton, who introduced printing art into England late in 1475, published as his first book the Dictes of Sayings of the Philosophers. The colophon is dated 1477. The establishment of a printing press in England was surely a momentous occasion in the history of the world, and was to have an enduring influence on all English-speaking people. The present volume is one of the finest associated with the name of England's first printer that has survived. It comprises six distinct works in four distinct editions preserved together in a single volume. The first book in the volume is a first edition of the earliest illustrated book printed in England. The thirty-four woodcuts were made by an unpractised hand, probably someone in Caxton's workshop. The second title, the Dictes of the Philosophers, is the second edition of the first book printed in England. The two translations from Cicero were made by Caxton from the French version prepared by Laurence de Premierfait in 1405 and were intended to accompany the Declamation of Noblesse although they were frequently found separately. The final treatise, translated from the French by Anthony, Earl of Rivers, relates to the four last things: Death, Judgement, Hell, and Heaven - popular medieval topics. John Reynes, stationer, bookbinder, and bookseller, who operated in London from about 1523 to 1544, executed and signed the remarkably fine binding. The binding of oaken boards is covered with leather stamped with birds, animals and bees.
Treatment: A hither-to-unknown indulgence printed by Caxton had been cut into strips and used to reinforce various sections. Upon discovery, the book, which has been recently repaired outside the Library, was disbound and the fragments removed to be displayed separately.