Exhibits – Salisbury House Library Collection

New in the Magic Box: Presidential Papers

On February 19, 2024

Visit the Magic Box in Burling Library Lobby and explore a new installation of four selections from presidential authors Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln from an original letter to a fine press bound book. On display the week of Presidents Day 2024, February 19-26.

See the digital exhibit live now!

New in the Magic Box: Leaves of Grass

By Laura Michelson

On August 6, 2022

In Exhibits, Featured items

Check out a new feature in the Burling Lounge Magic Box! On display now are three special editions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Learn more about the infamously evolving collection of poetry and more Whitman in the Salisbury House Library Collection. See the installation through October 2022.

Interested in scheduling a class or group visit or researching with the collection in Fall 2022?
Email us at archives@grinnell.edu.

100 Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses

By Laura Michelson

On February 2, 2022

In Exhibits, Featured items

February 2, 2022 marks 100 years of Ulysses, James Joyce’s masterpiece. The avant-garde novel was published for the first time in its entirety on February 2, 1922 on the author’s 40th birthday by the Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Paris. It originally began publication in The Little Review, a Chicago based modernist literary magazine in the spring of 1918, but was halted in 1920 after the ruling of an obscenity trial in the US. 100 years later, some unique copies call Grinnell Special Collections home. Stop by the Magic Box on the first floor to see a few of these editions or find out more from our digital exhibit.

New Magic Box feature: Order of the Garter

By Laura Michelson

On October 14, 2021

In Exhibits, Featured items

A new feature from the shelves of the Salisbury House Library Collection is on display in the Magic Box. Stop by to see The institution, laws and ceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter. Collected by Elias Ashmole with illustrations by Wenceslaus Hollar. London: 1672.

This 1672 folio details the history of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and highest chivalric order in Britain. It features detailed illustrations of architecture of St. George’s Chapel, a location at Windsor Castle associated with the group, garb and processions of ceremonies, and more. We don’t know much about its provenance before Salisbury House–the only section with traces of a reader marking the book are in the protocol if a knight of the order loses their membership in the case of treason. Today the order includes both men and women knights appointed in recognition of national service. We pulled it for a class visiting Special Collections this semester on the legacy of Saint George and were wowed by the detail of Hollar’s illustrations.

Take a closer look!

Exhibit announcement | Book Fool: Reading a Bibliophile’s Library

By Laura Michelson

On September 10, 2021

In Collection news, Exhibits

Book Fool: Reading a Bibliophile’s Library

is installed now in the Burling Library Gallery (lower level). The exhibit features the Salisbury House Library Collection material ranging from 1483 to the 1940s. Visit the gallery anytime during library open hours. Book worms, book fools, bibliophiles, and all lovers of books will find something to enjoy. Learn about the bibliophile who built the Salisbury House Library Collection, the range of material that calls it home, and how it came to Grinnell College Special Collections.

Visit this fall exhibit during Burling Library’s open hours September – December 2021. Join us for a glimpse into the Salisbury House Library Collection and its exciting new chapter at Grinnell College.