Modern Books and Manuscripts

At the turn of the twentieth century, Spanish publishers the Maucci brothers commissioned Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) to illustrate a new series of children’s stories on the history of Mexico, the Biblioteca del niño mexicano.  Each story was published with a colorful, and often rather gruesome, wrapper illustration depicting the contents within, and [...]

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This is the first of four parts of a juvenile geography, titled Di li shü lin væn-koh kwu-kying z-tì yiu-tin kong-tsing, and published in China in 1852. Its author, William Alexander Parsons Martin (1827-1916), was an American Presbyterian minister who lived and worked in China and Japan for almost forty years.
The book is [...]

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For our inaugural post, may we present:

Published in the mid-1820s, Musée des Dames et des Demoiselles includes six small books covered in lavender paper and packed together in a blue and gilt paper gift box. Each book covers a different area of science appropriate for delicate demoiselles: fruit, flowers, minerals, butterflies, insects, and birds. Along [...]

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