The Rosenbach

Thanks, Rick— We can’t wait to read it!

from Rick Jones .rickphotography

I finally managed to submit my latest article for Sherlock Holmes Magazine, much to the delight and relief of the long-suffering and extraordinarily patient Adrian Braddy! Many thanks to Edward G Pettit for giving me a tour of The Rosenbach somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 months ago. And my dad, Rick Jones, tagged along! The article, for obvious reasons, focuses on the Sherlockian items in the library, but there were lots of other cool things to see, so it’s time for a small photo dump. Look for the full story in the next issue of SHM, coming soon!




Image 1- Two men wearing deerstalker hats smile while one holds an open book.
Image 2- Two men sit at a long wooden table in conversation with several volumes of printed material before them.
Image 3- A man in a tweed coat with a white beard holds open an old book revealing handwritten text.

Thanks to for spending time with us yesterday, and for this lovely photo of the library!


Fine, if you insist! I’ll give you a double post today in honor of BookLoversDay . If we’re going to have a new made up holiday, at least it’s one I can get behind.

Photo is part of the rare book collection I took yesterday. It is a book and history lover’s heaven. Please go there if you are able.

Last week, we said goodbye to our summer interns Maria della Porta, Annette Seo, and Reily Brown. This terrific trio worked with our Collections Department on stewardship tasks including photo inventory, organizing 70 years of exhibition files, collections object photography, developing a directory of collections related to marine life and creating an updated bibliography of publications based on Rosenbach research. They also worked on special projects including creating unique Behind the Bookcase tours (“Down the Shore with the Rosenbach’s” and “Deep Sea Diving with Marianne Moore”), an illustrated guide to making an illuminated manuscript, and a podcast episode on the Ireland forgeries. We’re so pleased to have had this time with them and have truly delighted in their enthusiasm and engagement. Please enjoy parting notes from each of them at

The Rosenbach would like to extend gratitude and thanks to Studio Institute and the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University for providing the funding for our summer interns.


Photos by


Image 1- Three young people wear red lanyards and smile for the camera while standing shoulder to shoulder beneath a sign that reads Treasures from the Rosenbach’s Collection.
Image 2- A person sits working at a laptop as three other people stand looking at the screen.
Image 3- Four people sit around a table working at laptops and handling files and printed materials.
Image 4- Hands hold an open book containing examples of illuminated manuscript pages.

Last week, we said goodbye to our summer interns Maria della Porta, Annette Seo, and Reily Brown. This terrific trio worked with our Collections Department on stewardship tasks including photo inventory, organizing 70 years of exhibition files, collections object photography, developing a directory of collections related to marine life and creating an updated bibliography of publications based on Rosenbach research. They also worked on special projects including creating unique Behind the Bookcase tours (“Down the Shore with the Rosenbach’s” and “Deep Sea Diving with Marianne Moore”), an illustrated guide to making an illuminated manuscript, and a podcast episode on the Ireland forgeries. We’re so pleased to have had this time with them and have truly delighted in their enthusiasm and engagement. Please enjoy these parting notes from each of them here→ https://bit.ly/4dzZMcc.

The Rosenbach would like to extend gratitude and thanks to Studio Institute and the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University for providing the funding for our summer interns.


Photos by Jobi Zink

Image 1- Three young people wear red lanyards and smile for the camera while standing shoulder to shoulder beneath a sign that reads Treasures from the Rosenbach's Collection.
Image 2- A person sits working at a laptop as three other people stand looking at the screen.
Image 3- Four people sit around a table working at laptops and handling files and printed materials.
Image 4- Hands hold an open book containing examples of illuminated manuscript pages.

We were honored to have novelist Lorene Cary visit the Rosenbach last week to present materials from her archive to a group from the Monument Lab Summit. Lorene had the audience rapt and even read aloud from her novel Black Ice. It was an inspiring and invigorating morning!



Lab@Lorene Emily Cary

Image- A woman with pulled back black braids stands smiling in front of a red brick wall. She wears a tan knit scarf over a black coat.

Delighted to see Melissa Klapper on Jeopardy tonight. Dr. Klapper led Rosenbach’s course American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940 with support from Gratz College, and is the author of ‘Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace’ and ‘Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920.’
Glad we got to catch this evening’s rerun!



Image- A still image from a TV screen featuring a woman with long hair standing in front of a blue curtain. The onscreen text beside her reads, “IN 1513 THIS FLORENTINE
CIVIL SERVANT KNOCKED OUT A HANDBOOK FOR RULERS OF HIS TIME CALLED “IL PRINCIPE””

Our Development and Marketing team enjoyed a successful retreat this week, creating a calendar of welcoming events for the year ahead. Many thanks to Kayla Anthony, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, for providing us with the perfect location to gather. The Hill-Physick House was a lovely and inspirational space for our work, and we’re glad to have spent the day there.




Image- Four people smile for the camera while sitting around a large table covered with a blue tablecloth. Papers, laptops, and beverage containers fill the space. Portraits are seen on the walls behind.

Thanks to Atlas Obscura for reposting this great interview from 2021 with Edward G Pettit, Rosenbach's Sunstein Senior Manager of Public Programs, about our Stoker collection and the lasting impact of Dracula. Enjoy the Q&A here!

Dracula Lives! (in Philadelphia) The Rosenbach museum is home to Bram Stoker’s original notes on vampires and a growing collection of undead literature.

Fun new Dracula items are now available in the Rosenbach gift shop including this framed wall sign! Come visit us soon and “leave something of the happiness you bring!”



Image- An array of Dracula themed items sit on a glass shelf: packaged cards titled “The Dracula Oracle,” red zippered wallets, and a black framed signed showing the text, “Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!”

Thank you so much to Philadelphia Magazine for this lovely recognition! We hope you’ll join us for one of our upcoming events soon!


Photo by Mark Garvin

Images- A series of three images with the following text, with an accompanying image of a person leading a large group through a museum gallery space: “BEST of PHILLY
2024- BEST LITERARY EVENTS- The Rosenbach Museum & Library: Once you’ve watched the entirety of Game of Thrones and Succession for the 23rd time, proceed directly to this thoroughly unplugged Rittenhouse wonderland. Here, you can attend Great Gatsby-themed parties, calligraphy workshops, lofty discussions, and an annual festival in June celebrating Ulysses wherein all sorts of local VIPs, scholars and dignitaries read passages from the novel. Come Halloween season, a variety of events will be centered on Dracula - the Rosenbach has Bram Stoker’s original notes in its vast collection. 2008-2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA 19103, rosenbach.org.”

Join us for engaging and timely conversation on July 25 at our new Behind the Bookcase Tour, The Wonders of the Invisible World: Religion, Culture, and Society in Early America. Supported by materials from the Rosenbach collection, we'll gather in the Rosenbach library and consider the place of religion and spirituality in American life. Space is limited— secure your spot here https://bit.ly/3S6DOW1



Image- A close up of a worn page in a book covered with printed text introducing a religious text by Michael Wiggleworth.

The Rosenbach’s copy of the Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho is especially interesting because this edition was published by Sancho’s son—making the volume the first English-language book to be both written and published by persons of African descent. Sancho’s son, William Leach Osborne, transformed his father’s old grocery store into a printing house and book shop.
•••

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780), Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho,
an African, to which are prefixed, memoirs of his life, by Joseph
Jekyll, Esq. M.P.
London: Printed for W. Sancho, 1803
EL2 .S211l 803

Ignatius Sancho was born while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on a vessel carrying captive Africans to Spanish colonies in the Western hemisphere, where the captives were sold and enslaved . Sancho was orphaned when he was only two years old. The man who enslaved the toddler in the colony of New Granada took Sancho to England
and gave him to a family who lived in Greenwich. In an unlikely turn of events, Sancho befriended the 2nd Duke of Montagu and eventually escaped captivity in Greenwich to live with that aristocratic family. The Montagus provided him a job as a butler—and vitally for Sancho’s future prospects, opportunities to explore the arts, literature, and learning. Sancho became well known in London society circles,
especially after sitting for a portrait by the famous artist Thomas Gainsborough—who also painted Sancho’s patroness, the Duchess of Montagu. A correspondence with the famous author Laurence Sterne further enhanced Sancho’s status in learned London society. With help from the Montagu family, Sancho opened a grocery shop in London that granted him and his family a level of financial stability and allowed
Sancho to engage widely in the artistic and cultural scene in the city. As a property holder, Sancho was the first person of African descent known to have been qualified to vote in parliamentary elections in Great Britain.


Photo by John Flak

Image- A copy of the Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho lies open on gray foam, revealing the title page and an illustration of Ignatius Sancho.

Happy to start the day sharing another item featured in our new Treasures Gallery!
•••
Jane Austen (1775–1817), Pride and prejudice: a novel
London: Printed for T. Egerton, 1813
EL3 .A933p v.1

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Arguably one of the most well-recognized first lines in English literature, Jane Austen’s opening to Pride and Prejudice tells the astute reader what to expect from her novel. Rather than a straightforward romance, or a sentimental novel of the late eighteenth century, Pride and Prejudice, like the rest of Austen’s novels, is one of subtle, playful and tongue-in-cheek critique and commentary on her social world, that of the British landed gentry. Her use of irony, realism, and satire allowed Austen to deftly highlight the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of polite society and the ways in which this society, its laws, manners, customs and duties, constrain and shape her heroines.


Photo by John Flak

Image- In front of a shelf lined with books, hands hold open a copy of Pride and Prejudice, revealing the title page.

With our new gallery Treasures from the Rosenbach's Collection: Literature of Great Britain & Ireland now open, we're delighted to share with you some of the marvelous collection items you'll see when you visit. We'll share additional materials over the coming days, and we look forward to welcoming you!
•••
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Comedies, histories & tragedies
The second impression
London: Printed by Tho. Cotes for Robert Allot ..., 1632
EL1 .S527 632a

The First Folio, printed in 1623, represented the first time that nearly all of William Shakespeare’s plays were published together. It is also the first time that nearly half of his plays appeared in print, and the first time that the plays were sorted into the categories of “comedy,” “tragedy,” and “history” that are still used today. The Rosenbach does not have a First Folio. (Dr. Rosenbach sold his copy in 1952 a few months before his death.) We own two Second Folios, one of which you see here. The Second Folio was published in 1632 and includes almost 1,700 language changes from the First Folio.


Photo by John Flak

Image- A large volume lies open on a piece of red velvet, revealing an illustration of William Shakespeare.

Thanks to Jobi Zink, our Registrar & Associate Director of Collections, for sharing these photos. Yesterday morning, we were pleased to host the Delaware Valley Registrar’s Network for breakfast conversation, and tours of our Treasures Gallery and library. Welcome, friends!



Image 1- Several people stand in conversation in a library.
Image 2- A person in a dark floral dress stands looking down into a glass display case.
Image 3- Two people smiling and laughing in conversation in a library.
Image 4- Two people stand looking at books displayed behind glass doors while a third crouches on the ground, smiling for the camera.
Image 5- A group of people walk through a gallery space with green walls and display cases.

When you visit the Rosenbach, make sure to stop in to our new gift shop. One of our most popular items is the “Blind Date with a Book.” You only know a few details about what you’re getting, but the surprise is worth it! These have already sold out twice and we’ve just restocked. Come say hello and pick one up for yourself!



Image- A stack of books, each wrapped in brown paper and twine and stamped, “Blind Date with a Book”

Looking for the perfect weekend read. Any suggestions?



Photo of Dr. Alexander Ames by John Flak


Image- A person with glasses sorts through books on a shelf.

Friends, The Rosenbach Museum & Library will close at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, July 3, and will remain closed through the July 4 holiday. We will reopen on Friday, July 5 at 9:00 am. We hope you enjoy a safe and festive holiday!

Image- A facade of a red brick rowhome with tall banners in the windows featuring photos of book spines, and a large blue flag above the entryway with gold text reading "Rosenbach"

Congratulations to Jess Guziak, a 2024 Temple Grad who completed her spring internship in our Collections Department! You can read a short note from Jess on our blog here: https://bit.ly/45X9vGP
Thank you for being a part of the team, Jess, and best of luck on your career in Anthropology!

University

Image: A person with long brown hair smiles while wearing a black graduation gown and holding a black mortarboard cap with a blue tassel.

It was wonderful to see so many of you at The 2024 Bloomsday Festival. It was a truly joyful and resonant day and we thank you for the many wonderful responses we received. Bloomsday also featured the first public tours of our new gallery Treasures from the Rosenbach’s Collection: Literature of Great Britain & Ireland, and we're pleased to share that all three guided tours were at capacity! Here are just a few images from the day. Our Bloomsday photographer, Mark Garvin, has shared all of his wonderful photos in an online album here: https://bit.ly/3XGPXEq. If you see a photo of yourself, or of a favorite moment from the day, please feel free to download and share (and make sure to credit Mark Garvin and tag us )!


All photos by Mark Garvin
Alt-text in images

Members of our collections team are very excited to be finishing a shelf read of EL2 (an inventory of the books on the shelves in English Literature, 17th and 18th centuries), an ongoing project. We conclude the day with the folios!



Image 1- In a long corridor with barrister bookcases along one side, a person stands at a small table looking at a laptop while another sits in the floor holding a large book.
Image 2- Dozens of small white index cards sit lined up in a red metal drawer, some have thin blue post-its attached that stick up past their tops.
Image 3- A woman in a turquoise dress sits on a wooden floor holding a large book while smiling for the camera.

From Dr. Alexander Ames: It was such a pleasure to welcome a group from waygayphilly to today for a special offering of our “Rebellious Love” tour, including treasures from our British literature collections including the works of . It was an excited and engaged group!


Repost with .repost_
Photo by John Flake

Image- A man sorts through books on a shelf.

Thanks to for this lovely photo tour of our historic home!



Image 1- A view from the street, the exterior of a red brick Rowhome with a white front arch
Image 2- Wooden double doors in a white stone archway on the front of a red brick rowhome.
Image3- Green shrubs on either side of a red brick walkway leading to a red brick rowhome.
Image 4- Interior of a small room showing white shelves lined with books, a wood and upholstered chair, and a gilt mirror on a mantle.
Image 5- Book spines lined up on a shelf displaying titles When We Were Very Young and Winnie the Pooh by Milne.
Image 6- Book spines lined up@on a shelf showing a series of antique books.
Image 7- Three copies of Moby Dick on a shelf.
Image 8- Double doors with inset stained glass panels,sunlight shining through.
Image 9- A grandfather clock in a white corridor with small paintings in the distance

“Yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Thank you for a beautiful Bloomsday celebration, friends. Absolute joy. We’ll see you again next year.

The Rosenbach Museum & Library will be closed Monday thru Wednesday this week. We’ll reopen Thursday the 20th.



Image- A lectern sits outside in front of the entryway of a red brick rowhome. Flags of The United States and Ireland hang over the door above a large blue banner that reads “Rejoyce- Bloomsday June 16”

Our own Director of Advancement Megan McCarthy takes the mic to read a passage from Sirens. What an amazing day…



Image- A woman with long, curly hair, red hair wearing a green dress stands at a lectern outside reading to a gathering.

A full house for the first tour of our new Treasures from the Rosenbach’s Collection gallery! The Treasures gallery is now officially open and admission is included when you purchase a ticket for our historic house tour.
We’ll see you soon!



Image- A green gallery space with several display cases and large printed signs on the walls, filled with people listening to a person speak.

Looking out onto Delancey Place from the museum. Welcome, all!



Image- Looking through the open doors of a building out onto a street filled with people.

Third time’s the charm! Thanks to WHYY for this terrific interview with Senator Nikil Saval about finally reading at the Bloomsday Festival.

Pa. state Sen. Nikil Saval plans to finally read 'Ulysses' on Bloomsday After two missed tries, the literary state senator will lend his voice to James Joyce’s “monumental, musical, bawdy” masterpiece