“Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

Though no longer commonly used as a timekeeper, the hourglass, like this one found on a personalized fore-edge clasp, survives as a recognizable symbol of the passage of time, and the fleeting nature of existence.  

Image of fore-edge clasp engraved  with an hourglass and the initials “A.M.P.” on The English version of the polyglott Bible. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1858)

To get you over the Wednesday hump, please enjoy this… camel with no hump?

Image of an unidentified camelid from: Willem Piso. De Indiæ utriusque re naturali et medica. (Amstelædami: Apud Ludovicum et Danielem Elzevirios, [1658])

#HumpDay #Wednesday #WetNoseWednesday #vicuña #RareBooks #SpecialCollections #NaturalHistory #17thCentury #BensLibrary

In honor of the last day of Pride Month, we’re sharing this photographic postcard by John Frank Keith from our 2014 exhibition, “That’s So Gay: Outing Early America.” Below is the accompanying label: 

“It is tempting to suggest that the women in the first photograph are a couple. After all, the woman who is wearing the necktie has her arm around the other woman. Could she be the more man-identified if they are a couple? Or is she simply a woman wearing a necktie with panache? The exact nature of the relationships of the people in these photographs probably will remain forever unknown and unknowable." 

Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a formerly enslaved man from present-day Benin. After gaining his freedom in 1766, Equiano became active in the abolitionist movement and authored his influential memoir, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African.”

This engraving was published as the frontispiece for Equiano’s autobiography. Equiano is depicted in this portrait holding a Bible in his right hand. It was common for authors of slave narratives to proclaim their Christian faith and tell tales of their conversion.

Cornelius Tiebout, Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African (New York: W. Durrell), 1791.

Almost exactly 372 years ago, a stray question mark became a type ornament?

John Raymond. An itinerary contayning a voyage, made through Italy, in the yeare 1646, and 1647. (London, 1648).

This carte-de-visite of three Civil War-era soldiers shows three men posed closely together. Given how common all-male organizations and activities were at the time, such displays of intimacy would rarely elicit comment. 

Three unidentified men in Civil War uniforms. Albumen carte-de-visite photograph, ca. 1865. Gift of S. Marguerite Brenner.

From our 2014 exhibition That’s So Gay: Outing Early America. To see more of the exhibition, visit www.librarycompany.org/gayatlcp

Knock, knock, knock.  Someone’s at the door!

This canvassing book, or salesman sample, shows the various binding styles available for purchase.  Bound into the book are samples of engravings, a family record page, photograph album pages, and a marriage certificate. These special pages have pink notes attached with a script for the canvasser to use in his sales pitch. 

New devotional and practical pictorial family Bible. Philadelphia, PA.; Chicago, Ill.; St. Louis, Mo, and Atlanta GA: National Publishing Co., 1879.

From our 2017 exhibition The Living Book.  See more at https://thelivingbook.librarycompany.org/

The tangram is a geometric puzzle composed of seven flat pieces which can be combined to create over 6,500 different shapes. Originating in China, the brainteaser became popular in the West  around 1815, and reached Philadelphia in 1816. 

The answer key was published separately.  We acquired the answer key years before we acquired a copy of the puzzles, which we think kinda ruins the fun. 

C. C. Chapman. Scientific amusements for the old and the young, the grave and the gay. Philadelphia: Stereotyped by S. Douglas Wyeth, 1844.

Friends, we are pleased to announce that we have made it to #FinisFriday.  

This finispiece comes from Tomasso Azzio’s book on chess which examines the game and its rules as a metaphor for society, morality, and law. 

Thomas Actius.  Thomas Actii Forosemproniensis De ludo scacchorum in legali methodo tractatus. Pisauri: Concordiam, 1583. 

In Deephaven, the charming Kate Lancaster invites the story’s narrator Helen Denis to spend the summer with her in the house of her recently deceased great-aunt – in the quiet town of Deephaven, Maine. The two twenty-four-year-old women from Boston spend an idyllic summer like “two children." 

At the end of the season, Kate laughingly proposes that they copy the Ladies of Llangollen and create their own life together in Deephaven instead of returning to Boston. But it’s only talk. Kate and Helen do not become a couple like the two Irish women who famously lived together for over fifty years starting in 1778 in the Welsh town of Llangollen. 

However, the book’s author Sarah Orne Jewett did form a close relationship with the author Annie Fields, whom she met in 1877. The two had a "Boston marriage” – the then-current term for two women who lived together.

Sarah O. Jewett. Deephaven. Sixth edition. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1878.

From our 2014 exhibition That’s So Gay: Outing Early America. To see more of the exhibition, visit www.librarycompany.org/gayatlcp