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 …
Since coming to work in Historical & Special Collections I have had the opportunity to interact with some truly amazing materials. Over and over again I find myself drawn to photograph portraits in our collection. I think it is because of the power these images have to transport us to another time and to imagine life in a …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Bachrach, Inc.: Step Back in Time Read More »
The Harvard Law School Library has acquired a previously unrecorded copy of the Summa de Legibus Normanniae – a foundation document in the history of the common law – and has posted a digital version on its website. Unknown to Ernest-Joseph Tardif, whose synthesis of twenty-four manuscript copies in his Coutumiers de Normandie (Rouen, 1896) remains the definitive …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – A New Acquisition: Summa de Legibus Normanniae Read More »
My Colleague Dorothy Africa and I were reviewing some books in need of conservation treatment, and we happened upon this gem. The main volume is special enough: it’s a second edition of the First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England, by Sir Edward Coke – aka “Coke upon Littleton.” Published in London in 1629, our …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special: Littleton upon Coke upon Littleton Read More »
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 …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Revising New Hampshire Statutes in 1842 Read More »
There are a few times a year when the student stress level in the library is palpable. There is not a single open chair and library surfaces are covered with an assortment of laptops, books, papers, and containers of caffeinated beverages (covered of course). In the fall of 1950, one can imagine the tense atmosphere that led to …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Ungentlemanly Behavior in the Library Read More »
Harvard Law School faculty and graduates are no strangers to elected office on both the state and federal level. President Obama graduated in 1991 and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was class of ’82. Yesterday we learned that Professor Elizabeth Warren is throwing her hat in the ring for the Massachusetts Senate seat currently held by Scott Brown. In …
On my desk sits “The Cuckold’s Chronicle,” a handsome little volume comprised of 14 accounts of scandalous early 19-century English trials. The Harvard Law School Library’s collection contains many such accounts, including books, pamphlets, and Harvard’s online collection, Studies in Scarlet. The title “Studies in Scarlet,” by the way, comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1886 detective novel, …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Studies in Scarlet Revisited Read More »
And bid us go to Portsmouth our frigot to make claim And there we was to be paid off and so to the seas again There’s fifteen girls at Scarborough and five and forty more We left with child at Portsmouth and that makes just three score It’s all you girls at Portsmouth we bid you all fairwell, …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – A Bawdy Ballad and some Cautionary Couplets Read More »
In March 1909, the town of Kissimmee City, in central Florida, sent the Harvard Law School Library a slender 79-page volume of The Revised ordinances of the town of Kissimmee City, published in 1892. Not surprisingly, the ordinances address the powers and responsibilities of local officials and issues of public health and safety typical of the ordinances of …
852 RARE: The Weekly Special – Visions of Airships over Kissimmee Read More »