✨ 🎩 Fairytale Friday 🎩✨
This week’s tale is The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss and published in New York by The Vanguard Press in 1938.
-Melissa (who suspects some hats have minds of their own), Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/pawmn9my
This sweet chromolithograph of a parrot & a cockatiel surrounded by a bevy of little birds is from Tried by Fire: A Work on China-painting by noted Milwaukee artist & ceramics painter Susan Stuart Frackelton, originally published in New York by D. Appleton & Company in 1886.
tinyurl.com/ywvwv87u
This week, we’re celebrating Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World, written by Marilyn Nelson and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, published by Dial Books in 2009.
-Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/4sn9jzs3
For our sentimentalist followers, we offer this sweet, little wood engraving, "First Lessons in Flight," of sparrow fledglings in the nest with mama & papa by Hector Giacomelli (1822-1904), from Animate Creation by J. G. Wood (1827-1889), published by Selmar Hess in 1885.
tinyurl.com/2rxnnhra
On February 23rd, 1868, William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in Great Barrington, MA.
In celebration, we’re highlighting 2 titles from our Morris Fromkin Memorial Collection, I Take My Stand and The World and Africa.
–Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
tinyurl.com/4cyyv25n
Not Every Fairytale Needs a Crown
This week, we’re visiting Zeely, written by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Symeon Shimin, published by Macmillan in 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
-Melissa Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/3bn96xc4
This 1916 collection of folk tales from what we now know as western Ukraine, entitled Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, published in London by George G. Harrap & Co., was originally translated into English in 1894 by Robert Nisbet Bain.
– Kate, Graduate Fieldworker
tinyurl.com/vpmrr95v
This week, we’re stepping into East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North, illustrated by Kay Nielsen and published by Garden City Publishing Company around 1932.
-Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/422k4jub
With Valentine's Day coming up, we have grebes in love, which have elaborate mating displays, in this case coming face to face to form a lovely heart shape between them. This illustration is from Bird Portraiture (“How To Do It” Series No. 35) Charles Tunnicliffe.
tinyurl.com/mrsyam9y
Irish wood engraver & fine press publisher Robert Gibbings (1889-1959) is noted for documenting his various perambulations in words and images. These images are from among 40 wood engravings Gibbings produced for his 1955 publication Trumpets from Montparnasse.
tinyurl.com/yrwrj6js
Typography Tuesday
Here are some examples of chromatic wood type borders from an untitled and undated specimen catalog of the Luzern, Switzerland, wood type manufacturer Roman Scherer (1848-1922), produced ca. 1905.
tinyurl.com/5tkrn5cv
On February 9th, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America. Today, we’re highlighting images drawn from three books about Davis and the Confederacy out of our large Civil War Collection.
Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
tinyurl.com/4ybkv95h
This week, we’re digging into The Luck of the Bean-Rows, a fairy tale by French writer Charles Nodier, translated into English and illustrated by Claud Lovat Fraser. Our copy was published in London in 1921 by D. O’Connor.
Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/5n98233r
Just a few Red Grouse (Lagopus scotica) contemplating the expansiveness of it all. These lovely Phasianidae are from Bird Portraiture (“How To Do It” Series No. 35) by noted British naturalist artist & illustrator Charles Tunnicliffe, published by The Studio in 1945.
tinyurl.com/ywvwv87u
Thanks, we really love Tumblr! And so grateful that BlueSky offers an alternative to X!! 😉
Wisconsin illustrator & wood engraver Frank Utpatel was a frequent collaborator with August Derleth. Today we show engravings Utpatel devised for Derleth's 1962 collection of poems, This Wound, printed from the original blocks by Carroll Coleman at his Prairie Press.
tinyurl.com/ct6nacmf
Typography Tuesday
Here are some "classic" fonts from Specimens of Printing Types from Stephenson, Blake, the Caslon Letter Foundry, Sheffield, published in Sheffield, England by the iconic British type foundry Stephenson Blake & Co. in 1959.
tinyurl.com/4cc233m9
On February 2nd, 1653, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (later New York) was incorporated. Today we highlight imagery from this period of Dutch settlement, drawn from The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909, by Isaac Newton Stokes.
Amanda, SC Graduate Intern
tinyurl.com/u2aaj6pd
This week, we’re stepping into Andersen’s Fairy Tales, written by Hans Christian Andersen, and illustrated by Arthur Szyk. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, this collection gathers many of Andersen’s most enduring stories.
tinyurl.com/2s3ku7hv
-Melissa Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
A Grey Heron Feathursday
This illustration of a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) is from Bird Portraiture (“How To Do It” Series No. 35) by noted British naturalist artist and illustrator Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979), published in London and New York by The Studio in 1945.
tinyurl.com/y576zs2d
Today, we celebrate the birthday of writer & illustrator Jules Feiffer (1929-2025) with images from Some Things Are Scary, written by Kenosha, Wisconsin author Florence Parry Heide, & I’m Not Bobby!, written & illustrated by Feiffer.
Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
tinyurl.com/yc6j9754
This week, we’re visiting a familiar fairy tale through a slightly stranger, more theatrical lens with our first edition copy of Beauty & the Beast, retold & illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, published in 1989 by E. P. Dutton.
Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/dswxwdf5
Another Animate Feathursday
Once again we display a chromolithographic plate from Animate Creation by the English natural history popularizer J. G Wood, published in three volumes by Selmar Hess in 1885, with color prints by Boston lithographing firm L. Prang & Company.
tinyurl.com/24ff5ed3
Here is a selection of original, signed wood-engraved prints from the 2020 Wood Engravers’ Network (WEN) Printers Bundles sent in the fall to WEN members along with that year’s issue of the society’s journal Block & Burin.
tinyurl.com/2wxart2d
Some stories earn their classic status the honest way, by breaking your heart a little and making you grateful for it. This week’s selection is Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, with pictures by Garth Williams, published by Harper & Row.
Melissa, Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/6xkppktk
This print is by the Boston lithographing firm L. Prang & Company for Animate Creation by J. G Wood. Our copy of is a revised edition, adapted to American zoology by Joseph B. Holder, of an earlier British publication by Wood as The Illustrated Natural History in 1853.
tinyurl.com/yha8aedz
Wood Engraving Wednesday
These engravings are by the great English/American defender and illustrator of rural life, Clare Leighton (1898-1989). They come from Clare Leighton’s Rural Life: An Anthology, published in Oxford by the Bodleian Library in 2023.
tinyurl.com/7na7b7jc
Typography Tuesday
Here are some specimens from Volume VI, 1885, of The Printers’ International Specimen Exchange published in London for The Paper and Printing Trades Journal by Field & Tuer at “The Leadenhall Press.”
tinyurl.com/mryc87yk
Born January 12, 1856, John Singer Sargent was described as the "leading portrait painter of his generation." To mark the occasion, we're featuring John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s by Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond.
Melissa, Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/nhfdanpj
✨❄️🐦 Fairytale Friday 🐦❄️✨
This week’s selection is Winter’s Birds by May Garelick, with illustrations by Clement Hurd, published in 1965 by Young Scott Books in New York.
Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
tinyurl.com/y6dbhcyz
