Outside of our official miniature collection, other miniature materials can also be found in our Juvenile, Raymo Chaucer, and Carter collections. Additionally, we have 370 cuneiform tablets dating from 2700-500 BC. While these items are not officially in our miniature collection, they do fit the size stipulation and researchers are encouraged to explore them.
Within our Juvenile collection, you can often expect to find miniature Bibles or small books of lessons and stories intended for young children in the 19th century. Our Carter collection contains teaching materials about the bookmaking process and different physical aspects of books. In our Raymo Chaucer collection, we have an extraordinary number of Chaucer-related materials of all shapes and sizes - including a couple of mini ones! In fact, this collection contains our smallest codex across our entire Special Collections measuring in at just ½” x ¾”.
All miniature books require great craftsmanship and attention to detail but our more modern miniature books are characterized by unique and artistic stylistic decisions that build upon the binding and printing practices of their miniature bookmaker predecessors. Our more recent materials tend to be artist’s books which can take on a variety of forms. Some of our more unique materials include books bound in non-traditional fashions, such as one which is set between two halves of a cork, and accordion-style bindings, one of which is encased in a matchbox.
The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast by William Roscoe and Sarah Chamberlain. 1977.