“Leaf books repurpose incomplete or defective copies of books by inserting a leaf from the original work into a new book. The resulting book is generally a fine press limited edition with additional scholarly commentary and information. This exhibition features a number of examples from Special Collections in the F. W. Olin Library with leaves ranging in date from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Included is a 1420 specimen from Korea, which predates printing in Europe by several decades, as well as two ‘matched’ leaves that compare Samuel Johnson’s celebrated Dictionary of the English Language (1755) with the first American dictionary (Noah Webster, 1828).”
Janice Braun
Associate Library Director & Special Collections Curator
