We hope to see you in the library in person tomorrow, Friday, April 5, at 6 p.m. AAS’s 6th annual Adopt-a-Book event will bring together book-loving research fellows, staff, and supporters for an evening of viewing historical material recently purchased by the curators, sharing a drink, and, of course, raising funds for the Society’s future acquisitions. You can still browse the 2013 Adopt-A-Book Catalog to view the 125 items up for adoption ahead of time, but remember 50 new items will also be available exclusively tomorrow night. If you adopt online, admission to the event is FREE, otherwise $10 at the door.
Munson, Laura Gordon. Flowers from My Garden. Sketched and Painted from Nature with an Introductory Poem by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 1864.
Adopt me for $200
Acquired by the Society’s Curator of Books Elizabeth Pope, this book of poetry is interleaved with seventeen hand-colored illustrations of flowers. Poets featured in the volume include Lydia Sigourney, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Felicia Hemans. The volume is inscribed “Aug. 24th, 1865, Kaalaa, Nuuanu Valley” and also bears the bookplate of Jay M. Kuhns. Ka’ala is the highest peak on the island of Oahu in Hawaii and the inscription hints at the distances this volume must have traveled after being published in New York during the Civil War. Somehow the book made it across the Pacific where it was later acquired by Kuhns, a physician, plantation owner, and teacher of bacteriology at the College of Hawaii in the 1920s and 30s.
