Landmark Books
Individual titles that changed something, and the copies of them that survive. The First Folio, Newton's Principia, Audubon's double elephant folio, and the rare-book world of auctions, forgeries and thefts that grew up around such objects.
Part of Books
37 moments in this segment.
- - Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolutionibus orbium coelestium - Détail 3. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), which placed the Sun at the centre.
- - Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), which placed the Sun at the centre.
- - Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolutionibus orbium coelestium - Détail 2. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), which placed the Sun at the centre.
- - Newton - Principia (1687), title, p. 5, color. Isaac Newton's first edition of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
- - Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1687 (presentation copy to James II). Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (London: Joseph Streater, 1687). This the presentation copy given to James II by Newton.
- - Newton's Principia title page. Title page of the 1687 first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by Isaac Newton. PHILOSOPHIÆ NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA. Autore IS. NEWTON, Trin. Coll. Cantab. Soc. Matheseos Professore Lucasiano, & Societatis Regalis Sodali. IMPRIMATUR. S. PEPYS, Reg. Soc. PRÆSES. Julii 5. 1686. LONDINI, Jussu Societatis Regiæ ac Typis Josephi Streater. Prostat apud plures Biblio
- - Origin of Species title page. Cropped and rotated version of File:Origin of Species.jpg, which is of the title page and the facing page of the 1859 Murray edition of the Origin of species by Charles Darwin.
- - Karl Marx. Preparatory calculations for Das Kapital (2). Material from an early edition of Marx’s Das Kapital.
- - Marx - Das Kapital - 1867 - DHM. Material from an early edition of Marx’s Das Kapital.
- - Das Kapital. Material from an early edition of Marx’s Das Kapital.
- - Sylvia Beach on James Joyce and Shakespeare and Company. The bookseller who published Ulysses in 1922 recalls Joyce and her Paris shop in a 1962 interview.
- - Owen Gingerich on hunting every copy of Copernicus. Lecture by the historian who examined some 600 surviving copies of De revolutionibus, using their marginalia to work out who actually read it, famously disproving that it was 'the book nobody read'.
- - Biblioteca Nacional, Praia, Cape Verde. A national library building. Modern photograph.
- - Book history at the Folger. The Folger Shakespeare Library introduces its work on early printed books as physical objects.
- - Why the First Folio is important. A Folger Shakespeare Library curator explains that eighteen of Shakespeare's plays survive only because of the 1623 collection.
- - The First Folio: a four-hundred-year obsession. The Folger Shakespeare Library, which holds the largest collection of First Folios, explains why the 1623 volume matters.
- - The Bodleian's Shakespeare First Folio. Dr Emma Smith introduces Oxford's copy of the 1623 First Folio.
- - Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Abolitionists. A PBS American Experience segment on Stowe's place in the abolition movement and the reach of her novel.
- - America's oldest book goes to auction. Al Jazeera report ahead of the 2013 Bay Psalm Book sale.
- - How Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein. A BBC segment from The Secret Life of Books on the origins of the 1818 novel.
- - I cannot live without books. Library of Congress on the 1815 sale of Jefferson's collection that restarted the national library.
- - The Folger's secret search for First Folios. Stephen Brown on how Henry Folger quietly assembled the world's largest First Folio collection.
- - Newton's Annotated copy of his Principia Mathematica. Isaac Newton's personal copy of the first edition of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica annotated by him for the second edition
- - Mythbusting book collecting with Rebecca Romney. A rare-book dealer explains what actually makes a book valuable and corrects common assumptions about collecting.
- - Did a book spark the Civil War?. The American Battlefield Trust examines the claim about Uncle Tom's Cabin's political effect and what the evidence supports.
- - A first edition of On the Origin of Species. A rare-book dealer examines an 1859 first edition of Darwin's book and its print run.
- - Unboxing Shakespeare's First Folio. V&A curators unwrap and examine a copy of the 1623 Folio, discussing its binding and printing.
- - Anne Frank: her world and her diary. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presents the diary and the circumstances in which it was written and preserved.
- - Authenticating the oldest book of the Americas. The Getty's Andrew Turner recounts the decades-long controversy over the Maya codex once called the Grolier, and how it was finally authenticated.
- - Why are more books being challenged than ever?. A report on the sharp rise in formal challenges and the competing explanations for it.
- - Inside the transformed Folger Shakespeare Library. A public television visit to the renovated Folger, including its rare book vault and exhibition spaces.
- - Mahfouz through Western eyes. An analysis of how Mahfouz was read abroad and the controversy his work generated at home.
- - Women collectors and authors. A Library of Congress lecture on women who built book collections and how their libraries were dispersed.
- - Shakespeare's First Folio. A documentary presented by Simon Russell Beale on how the 1623 collection was assembled and printed.
- - Why were these books banned?. HistoryExtra examines specific banned titles and the stated reasons in each case.
- - The First Folio: the book that saved Shakespeare. A documentary on the compilation, financing and printing of the 1623 collected plays.
- - Forged in fire: the Jefferson collection. A 2026 seminar on the Jefferson collection at the Library of Congress and what fire did to it twice.
