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James M. Lawson, Jr. (1928- ) is a Methodist minister, activist and academic. During the escalation of the Korean Conflict, he declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to report for the draft in 1951. He served fourteen months in prison…

This early manuscript serves as a manual for the treatment of a wide variety of ailments. Here, for example is a remedy for an earache (dolor de oído). The suggested mixtures often involve the use of herbs and body parts of a remarkable selection of…

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) was a founding member of the Fugitives, a southern literary group of sixteen writers that was started at Vanderbilt University. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school. In 1924, Chills and Fever was…

This leaf from a Bible made in Paris in the mid 13th century has the end of the Prologue to the Old Testament Book of Isaiah and the beginning of the Book of Isaiah itself. The initial V for the opening words of the book, “Visio Isaiae” (“The vision…

Compact one-volume Bibles were a thirteenth-century Parisian specialty, crafted to answer the needs of clerics, monks, and students. Paris was the place to study theology in the Middle Ages. This leaf is from a fine Paris Bible that was used by a…

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) published four novels and more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. She is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which she wrote while in Haiti doing fieldwork in anthropology. This novel is…

Robert Burns’ 1787 book of poetry Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was published by William Creech, to whom Burns sold his copyright for the work for 100 guineas. Burns is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic Movement, and was a great source…