From Catalogue to Glossary, A Case of Arabic Printing

By Scott Ellwood, Bruce & Mary Crawford Curator At the Grolier Club Library, catalogues form the core of our research collections. While the majority of these are catalogues of antiquarian books (including private libraries, bibliographies, or lists of books to be sold) we also collect type specimens and catalogues of printing equipment. One particular catalogue …

Children’s Bookplates in the Grolier Club Bookplate Collection

by Kevin McKinney, Library Assistant Bookplate of Tyndall Savage, designed by Pauline Stone While working on an inventory of the Grolier Club bookplate collection, I became attached to a file folder filled with children’s bookplates dating from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The bookplate above, designed by Pauline Stone …

Now Open in Our Second Floor Gallery: Language, Decipherment, Translation – from Then to Now

From the Collection of Deirdre E. Lawrence February 29 - May 11 A new exhibition of contemporary art books at the Grolier Club celebrates thousands of years of communication through real and imagined languages. On view from February 29 through May 11, 2024 in the Club’s second floor gallery, Language, Decipherment, and Translation – from …

A Tribute to Eric Holzenberg: The Librarian, Scholar & Collector, Clubhouse Curator, and Grolierite

The following post comes from the Grolier Club Library's current exhibit, “A Tribute to Eric Holzenberg,” which opened on January 24, 2024, curated by Library staff in honor of his retirement after 30 years at the Grolier Club. Eric Holzenberg, Rare Book Cataloger, Loyola University of Chicago, Cudahy Library, 1992 IN HONOR of Eric Holzenberg’s …

Now Open in Our Ground Floor Gallery: Judging a Book by Its Cover

Bookbindings from the Collections of the Grolier Club, 1470s-2020 January 17 – April 13, 2024 Judging a Book by Its Cover highlights selections from seven centuries of the Grolier Club’s collection of bindings, largely donated and built by the Club’s members over the course of its 140-year history. The exhibition explores the history of decorated …

Reconstructing the Life and Work of Antoinette Louise Hayes, book cover designer

By Jamie Cumby, Librarian This summer, Grolier member Caroline Schimmel made a generous and fascinating gift to the Library: a portfolio of commercial book cover designs by an almost completely unknown woman artist named Antoinette Louise Hayes.1  Hayes was an art school graduate who lived independently as a working artist in Boston from 1898 to …

Now Open in our Second Floor Gallery: Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction

From the Collection of Jeffrey JohnsonNovember 30, 2023 - February 10, 2024 Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction features selections from Grolier Club member Jeffrey Johnson’s more than 400-piece collection of detective novels from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The exhibition highlights more than 90 early examples of the sources, heavily fictionalized memoirs, and …

Enemies of Books

By Kevin McKinney, Library Assistant and Kate Rowland, Exhibitions Assistant The Grolier Club Library has rotating exhibits of books from our collections in four small cases in the reading room. The following text and examples come from the current exhibit, “Enemies of Books” installed on September 28, 2023. The Library is always open to Grolier …

Now Open in our Ground Floor Gallery: The Best-Read Army in the World

The Power of the Written Word in World War IISeptember 27 - December 30, 2023Curated by Molly Guptill Manning During World War II—a time of rampant propaganda, censorship, and Nazi book bans in Europe—the United States military sent troops into battle armed not only with weapons, but with ideas. The U.S. publishing industry created pocket-sized …

20 Years of the Helfand Fellowship

By Jamie Cumby, Librarian The Grolier Club first began offering annual Library fellowships, now called the Helfand Fellowship, in 2004, to support scholars traveling to conduct research on the art and history of the book in the Club’s own collections.  Next year, the Club will re-launch its fellowship program, following a three-year hiatus during the …