By: Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern, 2015-2016

I’m not one to frequent dinner parties, seeing as my peers are assuredly drowning in some form of debt and being strangled by the long, drawn out sentences that fill the pages of their textbooks. However, if I were to be seated at any table of twelve, these Shakespearean dinner place cards would turn a regular dinner into a fancy party. No Pinterest expert I, but if it had existed when these cards came out, I’m sure they would have made their way to social media in a heartbeat.

These particular cards are antiques, but no one is stopping you from typing them out and printing them on fancy paper so you too can have an Elizabethan inspired night. Make your guests feel welcomed and appreciated with sentiments strung together from six of Shakespeare’s plays.

If thou wantest anything, and will not call, beshrew thy heart ­­_{Henry IV, Part 2; V:3.} Continue reading →

By:  Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern

Arthur Rackham was born to a legal clerk and the daughter of a draper on September 19, 1867 in Lambeth, London. And very nearly seventy-two years later, his life ceased on September 6, 1939 in Stilegate.  Cancer is what took him, but certainly not before he had lived a full life.

Before he became an illustrator, Rackham began employment as a clerk in 1885 at the age of eighteen, following in his father’s footsteps.  Ultimately, though, this brought him no joy so he took night classes at the Lambeth School of Art. By 1884, his art, a satirical political drawing, was published in Scraps magazine and by 1892, he resigned from the life of a clerk to become a full-time illustrator with the Pall Mall Budget, later continuing his career in two other publications, the Westminster Budget and the Westminster Gazette. Continue reading →

By:  Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern

Because he’s so given to romantic portraiture, and so is Juliet. Below, I have hand-selected fifteen images from six different editions of Romeo and Juliet. One of the great things about this collection is how many illustrated renditions there are of each play. For this blog, I chose to feature Romeo and Juliet because it’s a story with which everyone is familiar and there are a few different artistic styles captured within the works. I hope you enjoy as you peruse some images from our collection, and if there is another Shakespearian work from which you would like to see illustrations, please make an appointment to visit our library, or let me know by sending us a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ArchivesRareBooksLibraryUniversityOfCincinnati, calling 513.556.1959, visiting our website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb.html or emailing us at archives@ucmail.uc.edu. Continue reading →