Home > Special Collections > Exhibitions > Rare Delights >

• Poster (PDF 1.1 MB)
• ODT article 12 December 2002

Darwin and Borromini, just two rare delights…

The rare book collection in Special Collections, University of Otago Library, is by no means a static one. It continues to grow through purchase and donation. By way of thanking donors for their kind gifts and showcasing new acquisitions, an exhibition called Rare Delights will start on 13 December 2002 at Special Collections at the University of Otago Library. The exhibition will feature recent additions to the collection since 1998.

New acquisitions range in topic from garden history and architecture to 18th century literature and works by the English poet Robert Graves. These build on strengths from the de Beer, the Iolo Williams, and the University's own collections. Other books have been purchased because of their historical significance or because they fill gaps in the existing collection. Over the past four years, donors have gifted books to the collection. These books supplement the collection's strengths and also represent new and potential fields for additional collecting.

Specific items of interest include the large first edition of Francesco Borromini's Opera, a work displaying his designs of the church of La Sapienza in Rome (1720), an English edition of Jean de la Quintinie's The Compleat Gard'ner (1693), the herbalist Nicholas Culpeper's London Dispensatory (1695), and John Hall-Stevenson's macabre Makarony Fables (1768). Other highlights include Humphry Repton's Observations on the theory and practice of landscape gardening (1803), two original letters written by Charles Darwin, John Cage's avant-garde Rolywholyover (1993), and samples of hand press work from Tara McLeod's The Pear Tree Press.