Celebrating the coming of spring, I took a gleeful stroll through our Rare Books Collection and pulled out some of my favorite harbingers of the season. This also happens to be a great way of highlighting our substantial holdings in Natural History, Earth Science, and Nature. And, of course, Emily Dickinson, who cannot meet the spring unmoved. She and I have that in common.
Emily Dickinson “I cannot meet the spring unmoved,” AC 230, F 1122, J 1051
Our holdings in Ornithology include an outstanding copy of the double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, as well as the Richard L. Soffer (Class of 1954) Ornithology Collection.
Richard L. Soffer ’54 has donated an extensive collection of volumes about birds, with many books specifically focused on the various methods and techniques that have been used to reproduce illustrations of birds. The books in the collection provide examples of every type of illustrative technique: hand painting, woodcut and wood engraving, etching and engraving, lithography, and modern photomechanical methods.
Brasher, Rex, and Lisa McGaw. Birds & trees of North America. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1961.
The Consecrated Eminence 