Philadelphia's Rare Books Museum: Tricks and Treats Await Bold Literary Travelers

By Jennifer Harford

Halloween awakens the dark side in all of us. But who knew that Philadelphia, the self-proclaimed "most haunted city in America," has some of the most sophisticated and engaging Halloween events for adults and/or children.


And what better place to begin to stir psychic embers than the stately early 19th century home of the Rosenbach Brothers -- now one of the word's most important rare books museums.
 
Each fall travel season, visitors to the Rosenbach Museum and Library (right) near Philadelphia's historic Rittenhouse Square are treated to special events inspired by its orginal manuscripts and drawings of Maurice Sendak, and by Bram Stoker's notes and outlines for Dracula. Fall 2008 brings a week-long Dracula Festival (including a Rittenhouse Square Dracula, larger-than-life puppet parade) and gallery talks like "Monsters in Ink," where visitors will meet some of Sendak's bogeymen and find out where they come from in history, art and his own imagination. 
 
But the museum is a worldly and an intimate treasure any time of the year. It houses the handwritten manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses, the first copy of Cervante's Don Quixote and dozens of other great literary works (see below) along with an impressive fine decorative arts and antique furniture collection. Along the staircase, in the hallways, in the parlor, in the library, or in the dining room, your eye might drift to a drawing by William Blake, a portrait by Thomas Sully, some Georgian-period gold plated flatware, or a drawing from Sendak's classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are".

[Bram Stoker's First Edition]

What I love about this museum is the way it enriches a the memory of a loved book or entices me to pursue a new literary vein. It's like entering an early 19th century salon of "great writers" eager to share their original drafts, outlines and research discoveries with me.

The museum recently launched a hands-on tour on Wednesday afternoons. I went to one entitled, "Rediscovering The Wild West." Farrar Fitzgerald, the museum's education coordinator, selected several passages from what she thought might be particularly enlightening and entertaining for us. The tour involved guests holding in their freshly cleaned hands leather-bound printed journals and miscellanies. We were encouraged to read aloud from them (pure joy for a thespian like myself!).

The books would be considered outrageously non-PC today, and seemed like the early to mid-1850s version of passionate blogs, particularly: Thomas Johnson Jr.'s The Kentucky Miscellany (1821) which includes the poem "The Author's Hatred to Kentucky in General." We were introduced to a journal written by a Scottish woman who took herself and her children to the United States with the intent of finding and killing her philandering husband. Somehow or other she ended up serving in the U.S. military, where she pretended to be a man. 


To get the full stories of these intriguing people, I was invited back to reserve time with the book of my choice and read the rare book at the museum at a later date and time. I appreciated  the way Farrar Fitzgerald made selections that she thought would fascinate the Rosenbach's guests. One of the journals pointed out to me was by an 1800s white woman who claimed to have been abducted by Native Americans.

I recently read the engaging novel, "1000 White Women: The Journals of Mary Dodd," by Jim Fergus, which is set during this period. Now, I want to go back and reserve some time to read this true autobiographical account. As I get to know the Rosenbach Museum and Library better and better, I can tailor the visit to suit my interests.

And, of course, it is now one of the top spots I encourage out-of-town guests to visit.

Jennifer Harford is an avid traveler, reader, theater buff and practitioner of bikram yoga.