New exhibit open at Jones Hall

The Tulane Special Collections library is pleased to announce a new exhibition in honor of the 300th birthday of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a giant of English literature and criticism. The exhibit consists of rare first editions of Johnson’s works: for instance, his Dictionary of the English Language (the first for English), Prayers and Meditations, and his variorum edition of Shakespeare’s works. The exhibit also contains a rare first edition of Boswell’s famous Life of Johnson and first editions of other notable eighteenth-century writers, such as Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) and Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy). These materials are further illuminated by pages from an early print dictionary in Latin, Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, and medieval manuscript prayerbooks. All items are drawn from Special Collections, Tulane University. The exhibit is co-curated by Professors Dwight Codr and Michael P. Kuczynski, with the assistance of Samantha Bruner, an MA student in the Tulane English Department, pursuing a certificate program in Archival and Digital Humanities. Labeling provides not only bibliographic information about the books, but information about their relationship to English literary and religious culture.

The exhibit can be viewed on the second floor of Jones Hall (6801 Freret Street, New Orleans, 70118) Monday through Friday 9-5, and on Saturdays from 9-1. The exhibit will be open through March 15, 2010.

Posted by Eira Tansey.