English & French Literature and Languages
Special Collections has particular strengths in early editions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction, serials, and pamphlets. The collection has a complete run of the Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1922) and long runs of the Annual Register, the Monthly Review, and the London Magazine. Significant holdings of French periodicals include long runs of the Journal des sçavans, the Journal de Verdun, and the Mercure de France. There are also strengths in materials related to individual authors, especially Rudyard Kipling in first editions and Mark Twain, and in popular literature.
How to Use the Collection
The collection is available to all users in the Special Collections Reading Room (room 401) during regular hours. Materials do not circulate. Rare books may be used in the Special Collections Reading Room during service hours or by appointment.
With a few exceptions, the collection can be accessed through the MERLIN library catalog. Advice on using MERLIN to search Special Collections can be found here.
Finding Aids for English & French Literature and Languages
Center for the Literary Arts Collection
Scope and Contents These materials were donated to the University of Missouri Libraries by the Center for the Literary Artsin 2006. The materials…
Dime Novels
Dime novels were published from the middle nineteenth century through the early twentieth century and were largely pulp fiction aimed at a…
Frank Luther Mott Collection of American Best Sellers, 1662-1945
In 1965, shortly after Frank Luther Mott’s death, his family presented his personal library to the University. The private papers, manuscripts, and…
Helen Montgomery Jenkins Collection
Helen Montgomery Jenkins (1913-2013) was born in Topeka, Kansas, and graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.A. in Journalism in 1935. She…
Historic Textbook Collection
The Education Library of the University Libraries began collecting textbooks in 1968. Donations were solicited and members of the Friends of the…
Mary Lago Collection
Biographical Sketch Mary McClelland Lago (1919-2001) was on the University of Missouri Department of English faculty from 1977 to 1991. From 1989…
Modern Manuscripts and Correspondence, ca. 1700-1992
Special Collections holds modern manuscript materials in the form of books, correspondence, and personal papers. These materials were collected at…
Rare Book Collection
The Rare Book Collection is the default designation for materials in Special Collections that are acquired as individual items. Like Special…
Walter Williams Library
History Walter Williams (1864-1935) was President of the University of Missouri from 1930 – 1935 and served as Dean of the School of Journalism…
William Least Heat-Moon Papers
Scope and Contents Material by Wililam Least Heat-Moon (b. 1939). Manuscripts and additional materials from six of the author’s…
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Selected Items
Life on the Mississippi / Mark Twain ; illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton, with an introduction by Edward Wagenknecht and a number of previously suppressed passages, now printed for the first time, and edited with a note by Willis Wager.
edition of twelve hundred numbered copies
MU: Library has no. 1022, signed by the illustrator.
Moby-Dick : or, The whale / Herman Melville ; with the illustrations of Robert Shore.
526 pages, 9 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
