page_title: Rosenbach Museum and Library
section_title: Irish, British and American literature
hierarchical_section_title: Rosenbach Museum and Library / Irish, British and American literature
caption_attribution_description: English: A recreation of Marianne Moore's living room at Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia.
context_page_description: The Rosenbach is located within two 19th-century townhouses at 2008 and 2010 Delancey Place in Philadelphia. The historic houses contain the collections and treasures of Philip Rosenbach and his younger brother Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach. The brothers owned the Rosenbach Company which became the preeminent dealer of rare books, manuscripts and decorative arts during the first half of the 20th century. Dr. Rosenbach in particular was seminal in the rare book world, helping to build libraries such as the Widener Library at Harvard, The Huntington Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library. In 2013, the Rosenbach became a subsidiary of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, but maintains its own board and operates independently of the public library system.
  The Rosenbach documents a panorama of American and European culture through its vast historical, literary and artistic treasures.
context_section_description: Chronologically this collection begins with a fine group of English literary manuscripts from the 15th century including Thomas Hoccleve's poems (1410) which contain a celebrated portrait of Chaucer. There is a major manuscript of the Canterbury Tales and a noble fragment of another illustrated version. A small and equally choice collection of books of the pre-Elizabethan and Elizabethan period is complemented by a collection of commonplace books. There is an extremely rare first edition of Pilgrim's Progress which was first owned by one of Bunyan's acquaintances from debtors' prison.
  The majority of major British authors from the 18th century are represented by first editions of their more important works, and many of them by manuscript material as well. Some highlights are; Tonson's assignment copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, a group of Thomas Gray's letters, five leaves of the manuscript of James Boswell's Life of Johnson and the most extensive collection of Robert Burns manuscripts in existence.
  As you enter into the 19th and 20th centuries the collection strengthens. There are manuscripts of Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, Shelley and Keats (including a celebrated love letter to Fanny Brawne) and the only surviving fragment of Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The Rosenbach also has a supreme Dickens collection extending from the earliest extant manuscript to a carte-de-viste photo signed on the day before his death. The collection also includes Dickens' manuscripts of Nicholas Nickleby and the Pickwick Papers. Lewis Carroll is represented by over six hundred letters, early drawings, presentation books, photographs and his own first-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland. Other manuscripts include the work of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad and Dylan Thomas
  One of the Museum's most valuable items is the handwritten manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses. In honor of the work, the Museum hosts a Bloomsday celebration every year, including readings from excerpts of the book.
  Also included at the Rosenbach is recreation of Marianne Moore's living room just as she lived in it. It was in this room that she lived and worked for more than forty years. Moore's complete library, with many personally inscribed and annotated books from her friends and contemporaries including Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Elizabeth Bishop, is part of the Rosenbach collections as well as all of her correspondence and drafts of her poetry and unpublished memoirs.
caption: Recreation of Marianne Moore's living room at Rosenbach.
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