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Rare Books and Manuscripts in Smith College Special Collections

Introductory information about the rare books and manuscripts in the Mortimer Rare Book Collection

Where to find materials

The Mortimer Rare Book Collection consists of archival collections and cataloged items. This means materials can be found through the finding aids or through the library catalog (Discover Advanced).

For example, manuscripts written by Virginia Woolf can be found in the Virginia Woolf papers (an archival collection) and published books by Virginia Woolf can be found in the Discover Advanced catalog here*.

*Make sure to set the location to "Smith College Special Collections" to narrow the results.

Cataloged Material

Printed Books

Rare books are described online in the library catalog, found through Discover Advanced. You may search our holdings by author, title, subject, publisher, and publication date.

Subject Collections

The Mortimer Rare Book Collection includes collections in a variety of subjects and fields. Of particular note are our book arts collections, including all aspects of historical and contemporary book arts, including examples of illustration process, modern fine press books and artists' books, collections of bookplates, a large collection of primarily twentieth-century American decorated cloth bookbinding, and objects related to the history of the book.

*NOTE that the links below will bring you to pages showing materials across the Five College Consortium—to limit the search, navigate to the left-hand side of the page under Library Location and select Smith College Special Collections. 

Notable book arts materials include:

 

Other subject-based collections include: