Treasures

I have been reading a book called The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World, by Paul Collins. It is absolutely fascinating - so much I didn't know about the business of printing and publishing in 1617/18; so much about the rare book trade - and the personal anecdotes about tracking down First Folio read like the best of travelogues.

So I was excited to discover that there is in fact a First Folio here in my own little town. AND it was going to be on display! A must-see exhibit!

Off we went to the opening reception, expecting to find the First Folio the star of the show.There it sat, open to the famous portrait. I was thrilled.

And then we looked in the nineteen other cases...
Oh - here's a first edition of The Canterbury Tales...printed by William Caxton, England's first printer.
Here's the Gutenberg Bible...
Marco Polo in manuscript from about 146o...
Euclid: Elemnta Geometria - first edition ...
Ptolemy"s Geographia (1508)... The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)...
Copernicus...William Harvey...John Milton...Marcus Aurelius (from the library of John Adams and John Quincy Adams with John Adam's annotations!)

And there's more...a manuscript of the original Peter Pan...the first (suppressed) edition of Alice in Wonderland...

William Morris' signed copy of the first book printed at the Kelmscott press...

Oh and more:

the letter from George Washington accepting the Presidency - the first U.S. census - the first printing of the Declaration of Independence - the first printed draft of the Constitution...

It just went on and on:

TWENTY cases of priceless, rare treasures!

It was the Audubon that held my eye longest.
The double-elephant folio edition of The Birds of America was open to the page of "Raven"-
my now-favorite Audubon print.

The i-phone-picture can't do it justice. The prints in Goggle images are inadequate.
You'll have to come visit and see this exhibit in person.

It's on until May 8th.

Reserve your weekend now!

Travels to see Tut

We travelled to see the King Tut exhibit at the Children's Museum.
An exhibit that had travelled quite a way to be shown to us.

We soon discovered that there was lots more of the museum to explore.
We loved the dinosaurs and dragons, enjoyed watching the water clock and the trains- and the Vacationeers shared their recent Egyptian experiences when we wandered through the modern Egypt gallery.

We hung out with some familiar characters.

but the folks who traveled to see the museum with us were my favorite part.

a Day at the Museum(s)

The Summer experience just wouldn't be complete without visiting some museums. The Junior Vacationeers had been in art classes and created wonderful things themselves, and had an Art Show, a public display, and our own table of art right in the dining room. So they were ready for the University Art Museum. The building itself was fascinating, with its angled stairs and soaring roof.

It was fun to find exactly where we were by studying the architectural model for the museum.
The accompanying adults were interested in the special exhibition of flower portraits - some fantastic watercolors by A.R. Valentien. The Junior Vacationeers raced through the exhibit looking for their favorite plant name.
We moved on to the ancient world.
We were able to make every exhibit interactive.
Our powers of observation were strained to recall where we'd seen something like this before. Could it have been in the living room?? Have to check that out when we get home.
The mouse character, made years ago by HoosierKitty, enjoyed the outing.

We moved on to the Museum of World Cultures, where we could contribute to displays -
and even be inside them.
Our favorite ancient culture used weird tools such as dial phones.
Who knew Mama Vacationeer was so old that she could tell us all about the ancient artifacts there? We could have spent all the rest of the day in this recreation of a home from 1967.