No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The Newberry Library of Chicago is an independent history and humanities research library. Its 1.5 million printed books and 4500 linear feet of manuscripts on European and American history, English and American literature, travel and discovery in the New World, and music were, until recently, not thought to include much material on the sciences. A search of the card catalogue has already yielded over 1500 scientific titles, with the likelihood that 700–1000 more will be found, scattered among the Library's collections.
1 The Newberry Library's manuscript collection has yet to be completely catalogued by item. Estimates of the number of manuscripts have varied from 200 000 to 5 million, the latter figure a reckoning by individual leaves or fragments. Since 1977, manuscript holdings have been computed on the basis of linear feet of boxed items, according to Diana Haskell, Curator of Modern Manuscripts.
2 Allen G. Debus, Morris Fishbein Professor in the Department of History, the College, and the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago, compiled a list of ninety-five of the Newberry Library's important early science titles in the course of research for his Man and Nature in the Renaissance, Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 1978Google Scholar (see Preface, p. x.) Those ninety-five titles were the start of the checklist (in progress) on which this paper is based. The author gratefully acknowledges Professor Debus's generous and continuing help and interest.
3 General Guide to the Collections of the Newberry Library, Chicago, Newberry Library, Office of Institutional Services, n.d. (circa 1976?), ‘General Information’, p. 2.Google Scholar
4 Proceedings of the Trustees for the Year Ending January 5 1891, Chicago, 1891, ‘Report of the Librarian’, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar
5 The National Union Catalogue: Pre-1956 Imprints and Supplements, London, Mansell, 1968–1981Google Scholar, and Goff, Frederick R., Incunabula in American Libraries, a Third Census of Fifteenth Century Books Recorded in North American Collections, New York, Bibliographical Society of America, 1964Google Scholar, are the sources for information on holdings in United States libraries. Copies in the hands of private collectors are not included in my statements about holdings.
6 Stevens, Henry Newton, Ptolemy's Geography: An account of the Origin and Scope of the Henry Stevens Collections of the Various Editions, 1475–1730, Now the Property of Edward E. Ayer of Chicago. London, privately printed by Charles Whittingham and Company, 1908.Google Scholar
7 Holmes, Thomas James, Increase Mather, a Bibliography. Cleveland, Ohio (Printed at the Harvard University Press for William G. Mather), 1931, pp. 114–115.Google Scholar
8 Newberry Library Archives, Trustees Records, Vol. I, pp. 373–374Google Scholar, June 18, 1896, authorizing sale of scientific works to the Crerar Library, and Report of the Trustees of the Newberry Library for the year 1906, Chicago, Newberry Library 1907, pp. 6–7Google Scholar, announcing transfer of the Medical Department to the Crerar.
9 Duquesne University and the Newberry Library have the only reported (second) editions of Deux Discours; Harvard and the Newberry hold the only [1573?] editions of Mantice.
10 A Philosophical Essay: Declaring the Probable Causes Whence Stones are Produced in the Greater World… Being a Prodromus to a Medical Tract Concerning the Causes and Cure of the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladders of Men. London, Printed for W. Cademan, 1672.Google Scholar
11 The Newberry Library holds seven works by Arrighi, four of which are unique copies in the United States.
12 Webster, John, Academiarum Examen. London, Printed for G. Calvert, 1654Google Scholar; Ward, Seth, Vindiciae Academiarum. Oxford, Printed by L. Lichfield for T. Robinson, 1654Google Scholar; Hall, Thomas, Vindiciae Literarum. London, 1654.Google Scholar
13 The Newberry's sixteen Rosicrucian documents date from 1615 to 1714.
14 De la Démonomanie des Sorciers, Paris, I. du Puys, 1580; De Majorum Demonomania libri IV, Basel, Thomas Guarinus, 1581; De la Démonomanie, Paris, 1582; De la Démonomanie des Sorciers, Paris, I. du Puys, 1587; Demonomania de gli Strigoni, Venice, Aldus, 1589; De la Démonomanie, Lyon, de Harsy, 1598; Vniversae Natvrae Theatrvm, Hanover, Wechel, 1605.
15 Drake, Stillman, Operations of the Geometric and Military Compass [by] Galileo Galilei, 1606Google Scholar. Dibner Library, National Museum of History and Technology Publication Number One, Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978, Introduction, p. 9.
16 Frank Reynolds, Professor of South Asian Language and Civilization at the University of Chicago, kindly gave me a brief description of the manuscript, based on an examination of photocopies of two leaves.
17 Smith, Clara A., comp., A List of Manuscript Maps in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Chicago, the Newberry Library, 1927Google Scholar. In this checklist are approximately 300 items, world in scope. A typescript with 300 additional entries (primarily eighteenth century military maps) is held in the Department of Special Collections, and may be consulted there.