[Slavery & Abolition] Larison, C. W. Silvia Dubois (Now 116 Yers Old): A Biografy of the Slav who Whipt her Mistres and Gand her Fredom (1883) documents the life of an African American woman born into slavery in New Jersey. It is one of the few nineteenth-century printed narratives centered.....
[Women in Medicine][Rare] Blackwell, Elizabeth. Volumes I and II of Carpenter’s Zoology. Volume II owned and signed by Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Blackwell graduated first in her class from Geneva Medical College in 1849 and subsequently pursued further scientific training.....
[Medicine][Malaria] Ross, Ronald. Memoirs (1923), signed first edition reflecting on the creation of modern tropical medicine authored by the physician whose 1897 demonstration of the malarial parasite within the mosquito established vector transmission and transformed global public health. Published in 1923, two decades after Ross became the first British recipient.....
[African American][Poetry][Harlem Renaissance] Hughes, Langston. Fields of Wonder (1947), a scarce signed copy of Hughes’ major postwar poetry collection. The collection reflects Hughes’ sharpened political consciousness, shaped by travel in Mexico, Spain, Russia, and the American South. In this volume, Hughes returns decisively to lyric poetry after years devoted largely.....
[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......
[Mediterranean][Military] Justinus, Marcus Junianus. Historiae Philippicae. The 1539 Latin edition preserving the principal surviving account of the lost universal history of Trogus Pompeius, one of the most important pre-Christian narratives of Macedonian rule. Composed originally as an abridgment of Trogus’s forty-four-book history written under Augustus, Justinus’s text passes on essential.....
[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.....
[Sci-Fi][Feminism][Literature] [LGBTQ] Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night, 1979, collects essays in which the author articulates the intellectual foundations of modern science fiction and fantasy while examining how speculative literature can interrogate gender, sexuality, and social hierarchy. Written during a period when feminist scholarship and LGBTQ discourse.....
[African American][Literature] Hughes, Langston. Simple Stakes a Claim (1957) is the author’s fourth work rendering midcentury Black life through the voice of Jesse B. Semple, known as “Simple,” a working class Harlem everyman whose humor and indignation frame questions of race, labor, housing discrimination, and democracy in the early Cold.....
Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda published in 1876 is the final and longest novel by Mary Ann Evans writing under the pen name George Eliot and stands as a major work of Victorian literature engaging questions of Jewish identity, social responsibility, and moral reform in nineteenth century Britain. The novel follows.....
[African American Education][Segregation] Akin, Emma E. A Booker T. Washington School. 1938. Children’s educational narrative describing the founding and development of a Black rural school in Oklahoma modeled on the educational philosophy of Booker T. Washington. Written by a white elementary school teacher working in Drumright, Oklahoma, the book documents.....
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss published in 1860 is the second novel by Mary Ann Evans writing under the pen name George Eliot and remains one of the central works of nineteenth century English literature examining gender expectations, family conflict, and social mobility in Victorian society. The novel.....
Salmasius, Claudius. De Re Militari Romanorum Liber, 1657 advances seventeenth-century classical scholarship on Roman military organization at a moment when European states actively studied antiquity to inform contemporary warfare and governance. Composed by the French humanist Claude Saumaise and encouraged by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, the work situates Roman.....
Historical Record of the Life Guards, 1835 official regimental history documenting the formation and service of one of Britain’s elite cavalry units from the Restoration of Charles II through the early nineteenth century. Prepared under the direction of the Adjutant General, the work situates the Life Guards within the reestablishment.....
Bibliothèque Universelle des Dames Histoire, 1785–1788, multivolume educational work produced in late Enlightenment France as part of a publishing program intended to provide women readers with structured access to historical and general knowledge. The series formed part of a broader eighteenth century movement encouraging the intellectual education of women among.....
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims, 1876 collection of essays representing Emerson’s final published volume during his lifetime and documenting late nineteenth century American Transcendentalist thought on culture, individuality, and intellectual life. The work brings together earlier essays from the 1840s with later material prepared in collaboration with his.....
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. English Traits, 1856 first edition presenting Emerson’s analysis of British society, culture, and intellectual life following his travels and lectures in England during the late 1840s. Drawing on direct encounters with leading literary and political figures, the work situates American Transcendentalist thought within a transatlantic context, examining.....
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. 1965. Published in 1965, In Cold Blood redefined American narrative nonfiction by merging journalistic investigation with novelistic technique, inaugurating what would later be termed the New Journalism. Capote’s reconstruction of the 1959 Clutter family murders in Kansas foregrounded psychological interiority and social environment, expanding the.....
Walker, Alice. Meridian, 1976, a novel that situates Black women’s intellectual and political labor within the Civil Rights Movement and examines the shift from nonviolent protest to more militant forms of resistance in the late 1960s. Written by Alice Walker, a central figure in African American literature and Black feminist.....
Evans, C. S. The Sleeping Beauty, 1920, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, one of the most influential illustrators associated with the late nineteenth and early twentieth century revival of illustrated fairy tale literature in Britain. Rackham’s work helped define the visual culture of children’s literature during the period often called the.....
Potter, Beatrix. The Roly Poly Pudding. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1908. First edition. The Roly Poly Pudding, published in 1908, is part of Potter’s influential cycle of illustrated animal tales that reshaped early twentieth-century children’s literature with her unique blend of narrative realism and naturalist illustration. The book reflects.....
Schulz, Charles M. Stay With It, Snoopy. 1977 collection of comic strips featuring characters from the widely influential newspaper series Peanuts, signed by creator Charles M. Schulz. Schulz emerged as one of the most significant figures in twentieth century American cartooning through the long running Peanuts comic strip, which began.....
Eliot, George. Felix Holt: The Radical, 1866, examines electoral politics, class conflict, and reform ideology in nineteenth century Britain through a narrative set in the aftermath of the Reform Act 1832. Written by Mary Ann Evans under the name George Eliot, the novel situates parliamentary elections within debates over representation.....
Meyrick, Samuel Rush. Critical Inquiry into Antient Armour, 1824 first edition presenting a foundational study of European arms and armour from the Norman Conquest through the seventeenth century, situating military equipment within broader historical, cultural, and social frameworks. Meyrick’s work established one of the earliest systematic approaches to the study.....
Hockney, David. That’s the Way I See It, 1993, a visual and narrative account of the artistic development of one of the most influential figures in late twentieth century British and international art. David Hockney emerged in the 1960s as a central artist associated with British Pop Art and later.....
