This leaf from a Late Antique Hebrew codex is the first Hebrew papyrus in the Beinecke collection, Hebrew being the rarest of the languages preserved on papyrus. Fewer than two hundred papyri inscribed in Hebrew are known worldwide, and this one appears to be among the half dozen most extensive examples. The leaf comes from a codex, not a roll, and is one of the few known examples of a Hebrew text written in this format. The text is only beginning to be deciphered by Hebraists at Yale and in Tel Aviv and Berlin, but it appears to be a series of magical spells or incantations, mostly seeking God's protection from harmful forces.

The fundamental work on the epigraphy of Rome, the Epigrammata is also the finest of the books printed by Mazochius. It describes the collection of Roman inscriptions formed by Angelo Colocci and others, and includes along with the inscriptions engraving of the monuments on which they were found. This copy belonged to the future Cardinal Antonius Seripandus, a friend and patron of Paulus Manutius, and the owner of an important Roman library of the mid-16th century.

Chacon's suite of engravings of Trajan's column constitutes one of the greatest and most ambitious illustrated books of the Renaissance. The plates for the engravings are the work of Raphael and his pupils Giulio Romano and Giovanni Polydoro. Trajan's column was erected in 114 to commemorate his victories against the Dacians and has a spiral band containing over 200 meters of bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the campaigns. Its high quality as well as its prominent location at the focal point of Trajan's Forum made it one of the best known ancient monuments in Rome. In addition to 130 plates reproducing the scenes from the column, Chacon has included in this publication two fold-out engravings of the entire column with interior and exterior views and floor plans. The accompanying explanatory text, in a much smaller format, is here ingeniously bound into the plate volume, apparently at an early date.

Ercilla y Zuniga was a volunteer in the Spanish army invading Chile in 1550s in an effort to subdue the Araucan Indians. He composed this epic poem in part while still in Chile, and beyond his account of the bloody conquest, describes in considerable detail the culture of the Araucans and the natural beauty of Chile. The poem was praised by Cervantes, Voltaire, and many others, and is often referred to as the Chilean Iliad. Among the first works of imaginative literature written in and about the New World, it is present here in its first collected edition.

A collection of 250 poems by six of the leading Renaissance poets of France: Pierre Ronsard, Joachim Du Bellay, Jean Antoine de Baïf, Etienne Jodelle, Rémy Belleau, and Philippe Desportes, all but the last, members of the Pléiade. The selection, which includes 56 poems by Ronsard, was made to inspire virtue in young readers, but this copy in an elegant gilt leather binding is more likely to have graced the shelves of an aristocratic bibliophile than that of a schoolboy.

The recently increased interest in Eastern Europe among Yale's faculty and graduate students has led us to begin for the first time to collect early manuscripts in Slavic languages. This modestly decorated manuscript appears to have been a lectern Bible for a Ukranian church or monastery, and contains in Old Church Slavonic the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and, most importantly, a table of liturgical readings specifying which passages are read on each feast day throughout the year. Tables of this sort are of great value to scholars in determining local practices and customs. The manuscript was heavily read and annotated, and appears to have traveled widely: though produced in the Ukraine, it was later in Russia, and then in Poland by the 18th century.

This manuscript translation of El Deseoso, a Catalan religious romance, predates the first printed English translation by seven years. It is entirely different from the two earliest printed translations, and a highly finished, idiomatic text, with a two-page "Proeme" which is otherwise unknown. It is therefore possibly the earliest dated manuscript of fiction in English.

Two works by the reformer of German poetry in the 17th century: his translation of Pibrac's pedagogical verses and a treatise on the ancient Sarmatians as the ancestors of the Poles. The second work is based on material Opitz gathered after 1635, the year he became royal historian to Wladyslaw IV. The first text also has a Polish connection, in that Pibrac, the 16th-century French jurist and poet, was sent to Poland in 1573 by Charles IX as chancellor to his brother Henry, who had been elected king of that country.

Abraham Nunez Bernal was the head of a family of Marranos, Spanish Jews who remained in Spain after the 1492 expulsion and continued to practice their faith. Six members of the Nunez clan were victims of the Inquisition. Abraham himself was burned at the stake in Cordova in 1655 and his nephew Ishac de Almeyda Bernal suffered the same fate in Galicia. This memorial volume, edited by his family, contains prose panegyrics of both the uncle and nephew, a "word labyrinth," and poetry in Latin and Spanish by various members of the Sephardic Spanish community--elegies, sonnets, epigrams, songs--, the longest being a "canto panegyrico" in 138 stanzas. The few words of Hebrew are all transcribed phonetically, and God is referred to throughout as "Dios," a remarkable departure from the usual Hebrew shorthand. Only one other copy is recorded in this country.

These three volumes, of great rarity as a set, contain the first known German translations of Molière, who is represented by five plays: Amour médecin, Precieuses ridicules, Sganarelle, L'Avare, and George Dandin. Also present are works by Thomas Corneille Donneau de Visé, Philippe Quinault, Boisrobert, and Gabriel Gilbert, as well as several works from the English, the authors of which have not yet been determined.

Suréna, Corneille's last play, was staged in early December 1674 in Paris and this first printing came out in January of the following year. The subject was borrowed from Plutarch's "Life of Crassus." Corneille, however, transformed the cruel, lecherous, duplicitous character portrayed by Plutarch into a figure of great nobility. His adversary, King Hyrodes (Orode in the play), is similarly softened and the killing of Sur‚na at the end seems to result from a tragic, inevitable misunderstanding rather than from the devious cynicism of his Plutarchian counterpart. Suréna, now considered a genuine masterpiece, obtained little more than a succès d'estime. It was soon succeeded on the stage of the Hôtel de Bourgogne by Racine's Iphigénie. As his younger rival triumphed, the 69-year old playwright had bidden farewell to the theater forever.

This anonymous collection of twenty poems, all on the theme of love, is dedicated to a mysterious Palmyra. The use of masking and unmasking imagery ("To Palmyra putting her mask on," "To Palmyra pulling her mask off slowly" etc.) may suggest an elaborate play on the name of the author, Richard Palmer, whose identity is revealed in a most curious way: at the foot of each of the first 19 pages is a single letter, not unlike a press figure, those letters spelling out "Richard Palmer author." The suggestion of a conceit is confirmed by other passages ("Dear Palmyra, when from you I part, / Tho' it seems strange, yet still with me thou art..."). On the reverse of the half-title is a commendatory poem signed "W.F." This copy of this uncommon book (only two copies of which are recorded in this country) contains a presentation from the author. The ownership inscription ("Ex libris W. Fendal Dono R. Palmer") seems to indicate that the dedicatee of the book was none other than the "W.F." who prefaced it.

Thomas Whittell, of Northumberland, born 1683, was a lively local celebrity, and this is his original manuscript of his verses, composed for local occasions and celebrating local events. A few of Whittell's poems were printed in Newcastle in 1815. With little formal education, Whittell is one of the earliest truly "provincial" poets of any real artistry or achievement. A confirmed Northerner, he seems never to have migrated to the University or to London.

A collection of 77 Grand Tour engraved visiting cards from the 18th century. Twenty-five of them have the visitor's name written in manuscript, 30 have printed names, and 22 are blank with spaces left for names to be added. One is in the form of a playing card and another is hand colored and decorated with sequins.

With his sharp tongue and critical pen, Ludwig Wekhrlin managed to offend people wherever he went. Thus he led a peripatetic life, with intervals in prison, while editing two popular journals, Chronologen (1779-81) and Das graue Ungeheur (1784-87). The "Pocket-Book of Philosophy for 1783" contains essays on such topics as music, art, and the theater.

Benedikte Naubert, the translator of many English novels, also wrote a series of original narratives that introduced the genre of medieval historical fiction to German literature in the 1780s. Her collection of fairy tales, published in the early 1790s, is said to have influenced such writers as E.T.A. Hoffmann. The historical background of the novel Ulrich Holzer is the revolt of the mayor of Vienna against the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III in 1462/63.

Sophie von La Roche, friend of Goethe and Wieland, has appeared frequently in these reports as we attempt to gather her many novels, memoirs, and travelogues. The current acquisition--a miscellany--has a four-page music insert, an aria for canto, bass, and two flutes by Nicolo Jommelli on a text by the Italian poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio.

This 16-page hand-colored booklet, which survives in a handful of copies, appears to be the very first appearance of limericks. It precedes by at least one year Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen, published by John Marshall with illustrations attributed to Robert Cruikshank, which Edward Lear acknowledged as his inspiration for the Book of Nonsense (1846). This copy of The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women has the plates, dated 1820, printed on paper watermarked 1827. It comes from the collection of Marjorie Moon, herself an authority on children's literature.

The is the second, separately published part of Laube's first book, a collection of essays called Das neue Jahrhundert. Dashes are retained throughout the text to show where passages were deleted by the censors. After his beginnings as a radical journalist, Laube turned to the theater. He was a prolific playwright, director of the Burgtheater in Vienna from 1849 until 1867, and founder of the Stadttheater in the same city.

Charles Babbage, the English mathematician and scientific reformer, was born at Walworth, Surrey (now in Greater London), in 1791. He was educated at Trinity College and Peterhouse, Cambridge. From 1828 until his death in 1871, he lived in London. In 1816 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to 1839. In the early 1820s, Babbage designed and built his "Difference Engine." Based on the principle of finite differences, already in use by human calculators of tables at the time, the engine would calculate without the need for division or multiplication. In an effort to perfect the Difference Engine, Babbage uncovered a new idea in 1834 and began a lifelong attempt at developing his "Analytical Engine," which anticipated the modern computer. Babbage also played a major role in reforming the teaching of mathematics in England. His interests and work extended to such varied fields as astronomy, geology, cryptology, operations research, statistics, and the theory of manufacturing, while his salon attracted scientists, writers, scholars and the nobility.

The collection formed since 1964 by Alfred Van Sinderen is one of the finest ever assembled. It comprises more than 100 printed titles, several important manuscripts, and more than 120 letters.

Highlights are Babbage's account books from 1810 to 1816, covering the years when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge; his own annotated copy of "An essay towards the calculus of functions," his first important mathematical paper, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Academy (1815); "Sir Alphabet Function," a partly unpublished autobiographical poem (1819); a presentation copy of Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830), inscribed to Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury; Michael Faraday's copy of the same book, with his annotations; a 23-page autograph letter from Babbage to Alexander Dallas Bache (August 1854), in which Babbage tells the story of his life and explains his views on science; and Babbage's autobiography Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), inscribed to the wife of his favorite son Henry.

The author of this handsome atlas of Western Siberia, whose name is given as Ivan de Boulitchoff on the title page, was a councilor of state and chamberlain of Nicholas I and a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. The expedition he conducted to the Far East in 1844 was part of the expansionist ambitions of some of the Czar's advisers. In Irkurtz, he recruited as an artist Leopold Niemirowski, who had been deported to Siberia following his involvement with the Novembrist movement in 1830-31.

Published more than ten year later, the atlas is organized into two series, one of picturesque and one of ethnographic views, the latter dealing mostly with the native populations of Katchamka. This copy lacks plates 15 and 43 in the first part, but it is more complete than any of the five other copies recorded (one in the British Library and three in this country). As the presentation inscription from the author is dated 1864, it may be a later issue with a few added lithographs.

Over three decades, Mrs. Kathryn M. Stenzel and her husband, the late Dr. Franz R. Stenzel, of Portland, Oregon, amassed their distinguished collection of original art, prints, manuscripts, and printed material concerning the American West. As a gift from the Stenzels, the Collection of Western Americana has received 53 oil paintings, over 300 works on paper, several hundred prints, and some 1600 volumes, which greatly enhance Yale's already important collections on the art and history of the Far West.

The Stenzel gift includes 79 sketches and watercolors by James Madison Alden, an artist who worked in California and the Pacific Northwest during the 1850s with the U.S. Coast Survey, as well as an archive of books, manuscripts, and art concerning James G. Swan, an important pioneer figure in the development of the Pacific Northwest and one of the area's earliest ethnographers. Among the 88 drawings and sketches in the Swan archive are many done for Swan by Northwest Coast Indian artist Johnny Kit Elswa. The gift also includes collections of work by Gutzon Borglum, J.W. Kehoe, T. Mower Martin, William F. McIlwraith, Luke Pease, Peter Toft, and Daniel Winter as well as more than four dozen "bird's-eye views" of Northwestern towns and cities. In addition to the original art and rare books in their collection, the Stenzels have donated to Yale their extensive research collection that contains information on over 1000 artists who worked in the West during the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as great array of art exhibition and art sale catalogs.

Dr. and Mrs. Stenzel were married in 1951. They began their study of Western art and history five years later and soon gained renown for their knowledge and energy. They eventually assembled over 2500 paintings, watercolors, sketches, and prints. Their collection was exhibited at museums throughout the United States, and in 1973, when the United States Information Agency arranged the first American-organized exhibit of American art to travel behind the Iron Curtain since World War II, the Stenzels contributed four paintings to the seventy-one works included in the exhibit. Dr. Stenzel, who received his B.S. from Bates College and his M.D. from Harvard, retired from private practice in 1970 to write two books based on his collections and research. Cleveland Rockwell, Scientist and Artist, 1837-1907 was published in 1972 and received an award from the American Association for State and Local History. James Madison Alden: Yankee Artist of the Pacific Coast, 1854-1860 was published in 1975 to accompany an exhibition of Dr. and Mrs. Stenzel's collection of Alden paintings at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. [The Yale Weekly Bulletin reported on the Stenzel Collection in its April 20-27 issue.]

Möllhausen, the author of many novels about America, toured the Rocky Mountains with the Duke of Württemberg in the 1850s. Subsequently he served as royal librarian in Potsdam. This collection of three tales with American settings has an introduction by the novelist Theodor Fontane, a personal acquaintance of Möllhausen.

I Rantzau was Mascagni's third opera. Set in Alsace like its predecessor, L'amico Fritz, the opera was premiered in Florence in November 1892 with a dream cast gathering Hariclea Darclée, future creator of Tosca, and the legendary tenor Fernando de Lucia and baritone Mattia Battistini. It was a success for the 29-year old composer, whose career had been spectacularly launched with Cavalleria rusticana two years previously. The Vienna and Berlin productions did well in 1893. At Covent Garden, however, in spite of Mascagni in the pit and Nellie Melba as the female lead, the work was a dismal failure and was withdrawn after one performance--a disaster from which it never recovered. This unpublished alternative finale for the third and last act was evidently written for the Milan production at the Teatro Lirico, which opened on November 3, 1894. This full-score manuscript is almost entirely in Mascagni's hand; it is signed and dated Milan, November 1, 1894, and contains a presentation inscription dated the following day.

Witold Gombrowicz, one of the great names of 20th-century European modernism, was born in Maloszyce in 1904. After studying philosophy and law, he published a volume of tales in 1933. His first novel, Ferdydurke (1937), and his first play, Iwona, Ksieznicka Burgunda (Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy), earned him a preeminent position among the most audacious writers of the Polish avant-garde. From 1939 to 1963, Gombrowicz lived in Argentina. There he wrote the novel Trans-Atlantyk, published in 1953 at the same time as his play The Wedding. In 1957 came out the first installment of his Dziennik (Journal), followed in 1960 by his novel Pornografia. In 1965, the year of publication of his final novel, Kosmos, Gombrowicz moved to Vence, in the south of France, where he died in 1969.

The archive acquired by Yale from Rita Gombrowicz, the writer's widow, comprises the entirety of his extant papers: all surviving manuscripts and typescripts of his works, including his third and last play, Operetka, Kosmos, Testament (otherwise known as Conversations with Dominique de Roux), Dziennik 1963-69, Wedrowki po Argentyne (Peregrinations through Argentina), and Wspommenia Polskie (Memories of Poland); manuscripts and typescripts of various shorter texts by Gombrowicz and manuscript fragments of his longer works; correspondence with his family, with Polish émigré writers and organizations, such as Kultura in Paris; correspondence with friends, mostly from Poland, France, and Argentina, with publishers, translators, and theaters; books from Gombrowicz's library; various editions of his works; texts of stage and film adaptations, published and unpublished, of his works; clippings; documents relating to his death and various subsequent commemorations; bibliographic files, academic research, works on Gombrowicz, and audiovisual documents.

Correspondents represented in the archive include Mariano Betelu, François Bondy, Martin Buber, Albert Camus, Joseph Czapski, Jean Dubuffet, Jerzy Giedroyc, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Konstanty Jelenski, Mauricio Kagel, Tadeusz Kantor, Maria Kuncewicz, Czeslaw Milosz, Artur Sandauer, and Joseph Wittlin.

Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1933, Jerzy Kosinski was educated in his native country, where he read sociology and history. He emigrated to the United States in 1957 and lived there until his suicide in 1991. Following two volume of essays published under the pseudonym of Joseph Novak, he came to prominence in 1965 with the immensely successful novel The Painted Bird, followed by Steps (1968), Being There (1971), The Devil Tree (1973), Cockpit (1975), Blind Date (1977), Passion Play (1979), Pinball (1982), and The Hermit of 69th Street (1988). The papers donated to the Beinecke by his widow, Katherina von Fraunhofer-Kosinski, include corrected typescripts and various drafts and galleys for most of Kosinski's works, including The Painted Bird, as well as printed material, photographs and other ephemera.

With an introduction by Robert Penn Warren. No. 88 of 100. Both Evans and Warren were Yale faculty members when this portfolio was produced. Included are signed photographs from negatives made in the 1930s, among them scenes from Alabama, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, along with the famous "Tenant Farmer's Wife" of 1936.

"The seven signed and numbered original etchings have been pulled by hand in the Werkstatt Andre, Anselm Dreher, Berlin. The seven poems were hand set and printed by hand on handmade paper by Martin Gietz, Berlin." The portfolio was printed in 120 copies plus 10 copies not for trade. The translations are laid in. This is copy 32. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, published in the United States by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.