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In celebration of International Women’s Day, we invite you to browse some of the most notable works by female authors that have graced our bookshelves in recent years: First published in 1818, Frankenstein is not only the “most famous English horror novel” but also, by some critics’ reckoning, “the first genuine science fiction…
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Miss Jane Austen, born in late 1775, lived a life of relative obscurity. Now revered as an exceptional English novelist, Austen’s work provides a thorough social commentary on the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social…
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Ayn Rand, born in 1905 as Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, was a Russian-born American writer who emigrated to the U.S. in 1925. Upon gaining permanent residency in 1929, she became a famous novelist and philosopher. Her analysis of the human condition and the role of reason in human affairs made her books of lasting influence on…
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Born on July 10, 1871 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, famed French novelist Marcel Proust was born into a France torn by internal conflict. Though Paris was gripped by political turmoil and France’s modernization put pressure on the class system, Proust and his educated aristocratic parents were largely unaffected. Marcel, however, was a…
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Nikos Kazantzakis, born in 1883 on the island of Crete, had a tremendous desire for truth, a sharp intellect to seek it out, and an adventurous disposition that brought him around the world. His fiction largely reflects his philosophical training and religious values, while his work as a translator reflects his concern for the education and…
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The author of such notable books as Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, English writer Virginia Woolf is an established name in the realm of fiction. A pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device, her unique style and method of storytelling has distinguished her as one of the more important…
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One of the most enduring stories of the modern era, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit remains one of the most popular stories in the English language and its publication in 1937 sparked a creative explosion in the genre of speculative fiction, paving the way for its sequel The Lord of the Rings and numerous adaptations for…
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Saturday, March 12th 2022 marks the centennial birthday of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Jack Kerouac. “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who…
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In celebration of Black History Month, we invite you to browse some of the rarest, earliest, and most important works of African American literature currently in our collection. The earliest book published by an African American, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773, three years before American…
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Our current exhibition, Celebrating the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., features a curated selection of first editions and documents signed by Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as several of the most important works published related to African American history. One of the most important figures of the twentieth…
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