[Literature] Salinger, J.D. American author of Catcher in the Rye. Typed letter signed from Salinger to his friend Eileen Paddison. January 25, 1972. One page, typed on Salinger’s characteristic goldenrod paper, signed boldly in ink at the foot: “Love to you, Eileen — Jerry.” A letter chronicling friendship between Salinger.....

J. D. Salinger. Signed Junior High Yearbook . Possibly the most important J.D. Salinger piece ever to come to market, as it is Salinger’s only yearbook from the same age as Holden ever recorded as coming to market. It contains the only known handwriting of Salinger at the age of.....

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Representative Men. Seven Lectures. First London Edition: 1850. The Lord Lovelace presentation copy, inscribed “Right Honble Earl of Lovelace With the Author’s Compliments” on the front free endpaper (likely in the hand of Emerson's publisher). Original plum cloth, elaborately decorated in blind (Myerson’s binding A), spine gilt.....

[African American][Slavery and Abolition][Poetry] Wheatley, Phillis. “On Recollection” (1773), published in The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, an early transatlantic appearance of poetry by an enslaved African woman whose authorship directly challenged eighteenth-century racial ideology. Printed in London the same year as her volume "Poems on Various Subjects", this contribution.....

[African American][Poetry][Literature] Brooks, Gwendolyn. Annie Allen (1949) represents a decisive moment in twentieth-century African American literary history. It is the volume for which Brooks became the first African American author to receive the Pulitzer Prize. The collection traces the coming-of-age of a young Black woman in Chicago, charting her development.....

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Saadi.” July 1864. Published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1864, this essay reflects Emerson’s long engagement with Persian literature and the moral philosophy of Saadi of Shiraz. Written during the Civil War, the essay situates Persian ethical reflection within Emerson’s broader transcendentalist inquiry, asserting cross-cultural continuities in.....

[LGBTQ][Transgender] Elbe, Lili. Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex, 1933, a central text of transgender history and early twentieth century sexology, and one of the first published autobiographical accounts of gender transition. Based on the life and writings of Lili Elbe, born Einar Wegener, a......

[African American] [Literature] Hughes, Langston. Not Without Laughter. This 1930 novel established Hughes as a major prose writer of the Harlem Renaissance. The novel explores Black working-class life in Kansas during the early twentieth century. Published at a moment when African American writers were reaching greater national visibility through institutions.....

Lee, Harper. Autograph Letter Signed, 20 February 1995. Written late in life by the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, this 1995 letter reflects Lee’s continued private literary relationships decades after the publication of her landmark novel. The correspondence reveals a tone of modesty and reciprocity rather than public celebrity.....

[Cross Dressing] [Chevalier d'Eon] Davidson, G. H. The New Wonderful Magazine, Vol. II, includes a Victorian illustrated account of Chevalier d’Éon, the eighteenth century French diplomat, soldier, and spy whose public life became a recurring point of reference in the history of gender nonconformity in Europe. Issued within a miscellany.....

De Montigny, Alfred. Les Stratagèmes des Échecs, a significant early nineteenth-century French chess manual issued during the Napoleonic era, when France functioned as the intellectual center of European chess culture. Published in the tenth year of the French Revolutionary calendar, calculated from 1792, the work belongs to a period in.....

Hughes, Langston. Signed contract authorizing Spanish-language publication of I Wonder As I Wander, 1957, documents the international circulation of African American autobiography during the Cold War era. First published in 1934, I Wonder As I Wander recounts Hughes’s travels through the Soviet Union, Haiti, Asia, and Latin America during the.....

[LGBTQ] Highsmith, Patricia, writing under the pen name Claire Morgan, The Price of Salt stands as one of the most influential early works of LGBTQ literature and lesbian pulp fiction, introducing a same sex love story that concluded without the moral punishment or tragic ending that dominated earlier depictions of.....