Notable Collections

The Robert Dechert Collection includes over 1600 printed books focusing on American travel, exploration, and Native American relations with settlers.

From 1583 to 1712, the Dutch firm of Elzevier (sometimes written Elsevier or Elzevir), with additional offices in France and Scandinavia, published a wide variety of books, and notably small-format books, for circulation throughout Europe.

Library language and literature collections, such as French, often include publications on related dialects and languages, as well as languges occupying the same national territory as the dominant language. The library has significant Occitan holdings, especially because of the importance of medieval Provençal (an Occitan variant) poetry in the evolution of European literatures.

The Kislak Center holds over 560 exemplars of books printed in Europe from movable type before 1501.

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection includes nearly three hundred manuscripts and documents ranging in date from ca. 1900BC to the 20th century, with particular focus on the eras of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair comprises over 1,000 items documenting the history of the Dreyfus Affair and its impact on the art, society, and politics of France and the modern world.

A major collection of printed documents from the era of the French Revolution, the Maclure Collection comprises approximately 25,000 pamphlets and periodicals published in France from the late 1780s to ca. 1815.