by Philip S. Palmer, CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clark Library Some of you may be familiar with Twitter’s “Woodcut Wednesday,” when users share xylographic images from early modern European books, typically coupled with humorous captions and commentary. Woodcut-captioning, it turns out, has a long history. Illustrations in three books from the Clark’s early printed…

Dear all, It is my pleasure to invite you to join us for a new series of events open to anyone and everyone with an interest in literature, history, and the Clark collections. The Clark Library Book Club will meet monthly to discuss a book chosen for its ability to bring to life an aspect…

By Emily Meehan, Reading Room Assistant A recent Clog article had to do with the lovely libation of wine, but there is yet another drink that all have loved (especially the Brits) since its conception: a nice warm pint of ale! In honor of Oktoberfest and the traditional beginning of the brewing season, it is…

Now that the UCLA Fall Quarter is underway, programming at the Clark Library is starting to rev up for the year. The full 2014-2015 event calendar is online at the Center’s website and below we highlight a couple of upcoming programs that you may be interested in attending!  If you are on Facebook, feel free to befriend…

In 1951 the Clark purchased a 1701 edition of Rider’s British Merlin, an almanac compiled by Cardanus Rider that was published yearly from the mid-17th century until at least 1830. Cardanus Rider was likely a pseudonym for Richard Saunders, an English astronomer and doctor who was born in 1613 and whose actual date of death is unknown….

With the summer winding down and the harvest season fast approaching it seems like a good time to highlight a treasure at The Clark which directly observes harvest seasons of the past.  This hybrid manuscript is both a record of a vineyard’s yield as well as a look into a bookseller’s catalog. This hybrid manuscript…

The Clark recently added two 18th century French manuscripts to its small but interesting collection of schoolchildren’s arithmetic cipher books.  One in particular, that of Dominique Richaud from Aix-en-Provence, is particularly notable for its elaborate and colorful illustrations.   The tradition of the calligraphic arithmetic notebook was well-established in Europe and in colonial North America…

One of the Clark’s most fascinating annotated books is The excellency of the pen and pencil (1668), a portable drawing manual containing hundreds of manuscript recipes for inks, colors, medicines, and poisons, including the recipe for ink listed in the blog title. The text was “collected,” as the title page states, “from the writings of…

By Reading Room Assistant Stella Castillo A lesser known holding here at The Clark is the Mexican Manuscripts Collection comprised of documents dating from 1579-1828 regarding the Spanish settlement and colonization of California, New Mexico, and one document from 1802 concerning Louisiana. The collection of 29 manuscripts written in Spanish cover issues relating to establishment…

By Reading Room Assistant Stella Castillo The riddle of your future may be solved at The Clark! Recently, I was wondering what the future may hold, so I decided to look into fortune telling and came across several books detailing how to read your palm among other things (like your moles!) to determine your future….