The Mortimer Rare Book Collection (MRBC) is the rare books collection of

Smith College Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's c ...

. Along with the Sophia Smith Collection and

Smith College Archives Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college with coed graduate and certificate programs, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. The Smith College Archives document the life of the College by collecting mater ...

, it makes up Smith College Special Collections. The collection supports both general research and the curriculum of Smith College classes.

History

Smith created its first Rare Book Room in the 1937 addition to Neilson Library, under the direction of Smith librarian Mary E. Dunham. It was renamed the Mortimer Rare Book Room in 1994 in honor of curator and teacher

Ruth Mortimer Ruth Mortimer (September 16, 1931 – January 31, 1994) was an American rare books curator and librarian, known for her work at both Harvard University and Smith College. From 1988 to 1992, Mortimer served as the president of the Bibliographical S ...

, who herself graduated from Smith, and served as the collection's steward from 1975 until her death in 1994. It was under Mortimer's leadership that the collection developed its

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...

and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born ...

collections. The repository was renamed the Mortimer Rare Book Collection when it became a part of Smith College Special Collections, a then-newly formed entity at Smith.

Collections

The MRBC has extensive holdings of both printed books and literary manuscripts, including

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedg ...

tables, European and American herbals, modernist literature,

artist's books Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

, and book historical artifacts and examples. Among the Collection’s eighty incunables (books printed before 1501) is the ''Epistole devotissime'' of St. Catherine of Siena (Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1500), acquired in 1987 as Smith College Libraries' millionth volume. Collection highlights include: *

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(and related collections, as well as a small selection of Plath realia) * Ann M. Martinbr>papers

Papers
of

George Salter George Salter (5 October 1897 – 31 October 1967), born Georg Salter, was an originally German, and from 1940 onwards an American book cover designer. He revolutionized cover design for books. He claimed worldwide fame for his design for Alfred ...

br>papers
* Leonard Baskinbr>broadsides and printsSally Taft Duplaix Collection
(mainly comprising 20th century lesbian pulp fiction)

References

External links

Mortimer Rare Book Collection
website
Archival collections in the Mortimer Rare Book Collection
{{Smith College University and college academic libraries in the United States Rare book libraries in the United States Special collections libraries in the United States Smith College Libraries in Massachusetts Literary archives in the United States Libraries in Hampshire County, Massachusetts