John Bidwell's blog

Die Wiener Werkstätte, 1903-1928: Modernes Kunstgewerbe und sein Weg. Edited by Mathilde Flögl. Vienna: Krystall-Verlag, 1929. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2009.

Bible. O.T. Psalms. The Book of Psalms [London?: s.n., ca. 1890]. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2011.

In 2010 the Morgan presented an exhibition on the cultural history of gardens in Europe and America, Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design, curated by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers and others. The catalogue touches briefly on a question still debated by garden historians: what are the origins of the English style of landscape design?

Francesco Patrizi (1413-1494). Enneas de regno, & regis institutione. Paris: Printed by Pierre Vidoue for Galliot du Pré, 1519. Purchased as the gift of Mrs. Livio Borghese and on the E. Clark Stillman Fund and the Henry S. Morgan Fund, 2011.

Francis Willughby (1635-1672). Ornithologiae libri tres, in quibus aves omnes hactenuscognitae in methodum naturis suis convenientem redactae accuratè describuntur, descriptiones iconibus elegantissimis & vivarum avium simillimis, aeri incisisillustrantur. London: Printed for John Martyn, printer to the Royal Society, 1676. Purchased on the Henry S. Morgan Fund, 2011.

Francisco de Vargas Mejia (1484–1560). Lettres et memoires de François de Vargas, de Pierre de Malvenda, et de quelques evêques d'Espagne touchant le concile de Trente.Translated and edited by Michel Le Vassor. Amsterdam: Chez Pierre Brunel, 1699. PML 195033. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008.

Giacomo Torelli (1608–1678). Scene e machine preparate alle Nozze di Teti, Balletto Reale [Paris: s.n., 1654]. Bound with: Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652). Feste theatrali per la finta pazza[Paris: s.n., 1645]. PML 195035. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008.

While cataloging the latest gifts to the Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, we noticed and admired the prepublication hoopla for Go Set a Watchman, an earlier version of Harper Lee’s Civil Rights Era classic To Kill a Mockingbird.

Felix Jean Gauchard (1825–1872) after Gustave Doré (1832–1883). Rejected woodblock for the headpiece, “Comment Gargantua nasquit en façon bien estrange,” chapter six in François Rabelais, Oeuvres(Paris: Garnier Frères, 1873). Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2011.

Homer. L’Iliade, traduction nouvelle [par Charles-François Lebrun, duc de Plaisance]. A Paris: Chez Barbou, Moutard, Ruault, 1776. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2011.