Rare Books and Manuscripts

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Collection contains more than 850 works by or about the Pre-Raphaelites. The collection includes all four issues of the short-lived journal, The Germ (renamed Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature) launched in 1850. Also featured in the collection are works by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, John Ruskin, William Morris, Elizabeth Siddall, Christina Rossetti among many others. Enhancing the print collection is the Nicholas A. Salerno Literary Papers (MSS 338) that include Salerno's research on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and his collection of related artwork and realia.

Related to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Collection is the complete set of 53 titles in 66 volumes printed by the Kelmscott Press beginning with its first book, The Story of the Glittering Plain (1891) and concluding with the last book printed, A Note by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press (1898). Highlighting this collection is the Press' The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer: Now Newly Imprinted (1896) which exemplifies William Morris' vision of the ideal book.