Mary Person

852 RARE: Hiding in Plain View – Price caps on Spanish books

Cool, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Historical & Special Collections, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Earlier this year Historical & Special Collections acquired a 1571 edition of the Spanish bishop and jurist Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva’s Clementinae, si furiosus, de homicidio, relectio—a treatise on murder published in Salamanca. While cataloging it, I couldn’t help but notice a half-size sheet of paper tipped in following the title page. The wording looked vaguely familiar, …

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852 RARE: Real-life Murders and Bibliographical Mysteries

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Intriguing as special collections materials are, cataloging may sound like a dull line of work until you discover that not infrequently it involves solving–or attempting to solve—mysteries.  This was the case earlier this winter when we acquired a lurid eight-page pamphlet with an unknown publication date: The life of Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed at Tyburn, for starving …

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New Exhibit: Beyond Cambridge: Two Centuries of Harvard Law School Faculty Work in and on Africa

Announcements, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Student Channel / By

Historical & Special Collections is pleased to announce its new exhibit: Beyond Cambridge: Two Centuries of Harvard Law School Faculty Work in and on Africa, on view in the library’s Caspersen Room until April 27, 2014.   It’s no secret that Harvard Law School faculty do not – and have not – restricted their time and knowledge to the …

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852 RARE: Coke Upon Littleton (and Smith Upon Coke)

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Historical & Special Collections, History, Libraries, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

While we librarians may frown on writing in library books, it’s a pleasure to stumble upon the ownership inscriptions, annotations, and occasional cheeky asides of former owners of books in Historical & Special Collections.  Whenever possible we make a note of former owners of books and manuscripts in the HOLLIS catalog records as they may be of interest …

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852 RARE: Gentlemen in the Countryside

1 Comment / Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Spring is in the air, and even if that air is cold at times, the thought of warm weather activities, and perhaps a weekend in the country, is appealing. With that in mind, we offer a glimpse at a small but thorough and entertaining treatise by English writer Giles Jacob (1686-1744). Jacob is best known for his popular …

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852 RARE: A Little Something for Everyone

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, International Law, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Small gems are often hidden within large collections and this summer we were lucky enough to come across just such a gem– a slender volume bound in limp vellum with faded Spanish manuscript scrawled across the front. It surprised and delighted us and seemed to have “something for everyone.”  The outer binding alone is intriguing to look at, …

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852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Radical Reading

Cool, Faculty Channel, Historical & Special Collections, History, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Recently a tattered volume of twenty one English pamphlets, a gift of Dean Roscoe Pound to the Law Library in July 1929, crossed my desk in need of cataloging.  All the pamphlets were printed between 1832 and 1837, most in London, a few in Newcastle.  The title of the first work, from about 1835, gives an indication of …

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852 RARE: The Weekly Special – One Man’s War

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Historical & Special Collections, History, Law Schools/Study of Law, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Among the more interesting surprises to emerge among books being moved from a Library storage area recently was a collection of newspaper articles by an escapee from a World War II German prisoner of war camp. The writer was Lucien Roger Lièvre, a former member of the French Army—who also happened to have earned an LL.M. degree from …

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852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Revising New Hampshire Statutes in 1842

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

A chunky volume in a worn binding crossed my desk the other week, revealing a glimpse of law-making in mid-19th century New Hampshire. Although lacking the title page and preliminaries, I was eventually able to identify it as a copy of the Report of the Commissioners appointed under the resolve of June 20, 1840, “to revise, codify and …

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852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Horse Thieves and What to do About Them

Announcements, Cool, Faculty Channel, Historical & Special Collections, Series: 852 RARE, Student Channel / By

Some printed works have a remarkable way of transporting us to other times. This is often true of those ephemeral publications not intended to be kept for generations, but which somehow defy the odds and survive. Coming across them is one of the pleasures of working with older material. A handful of evocative items acquired in the past few …

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