The University of Delaware Library’s Special Collections hold unique primary resources from recorded history in numerous disciplines. Here you can find a first edition of Huckleberry Finn, the personal papers of prominent Delaware political leaders, and manuscript collections from such literary notables as Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Djuna Barnes, Tennessee Williams, and many others.
Located on the second floor of the Morris Library—with special security, temperature, and humidity controls—Special Collections spans more than 500 years of printed history. With more than 150,000 books, manuscripts, letters, archives, architectural drawings, maps, prints, photographs, broadsides, periodicals, pamphlets, and ephemera, Special Collections is a major resource for the national and international scholarly communities.
The strengths of Special Collections are many. There are treasures in English, Irish, and American literature; in history and Delawareana; in horticulture; in the book arts and the history of printing; in the history of science and technology; in chemistry and the history of paper making; and in many other fields.
Each year, Special Collections showcases its resources before the public in at least two major exhibitions. Recent exhibitions have included Color Printing in the Nineteenth Century; A Guide to the Papers of Senator John J. Williams of Delaware; Suitable for Cultivation: Horticultural Collections at the University of Delaware Library; Work of the Child: 200 Years of Children’s Books; and William Faulkner: A Centenary Celebration.
An exhibition catalog or publication that brings further information about the collections to the broader scholarly community accompanies many of the exhibitions. Many are also available on the Library’s Web site. As Timothy Murray, Head of Special Collections, has observed, "Special Collections houses an internationally renowned collection of rare books and manuscripts which helps faculty and students and also attracts researchers from around the world, especially as access to and knowledge of the collections are enhanced by technology."