The collection was formed by the Canadian puppeteer Rosalynde Osborne Stearn as a comprehensive library on the puppet theatre with representative examples of puppets characteristic of different periods and countries. It includes some 2714 books and periodicals from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the puppet theatre in various European languages as well as scripts for puppet plays. The collection contains 171 puppets from Europe, Asia (including shadow puppets), and the Americas, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Also included are toy theatres, theatrical portraits, paintings, prints and posters.
Etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi printed in Paris between 1800 and 1809. Sixteen plates numbered I-XVI, with the title plate first used in the second edition of 1761 and the two plates added to the second edition, Pl. II “The Man on a Rack,” and plate V, “The Lion-Bas Reliefs” as well as plate XVI, the reworked “Pier with Chains.” All plates with Roman numerals added in the second editions, numbered I-XVI, including the title plate.
Collection consists of 57 illustrations of birds, eggs, snakes, and plants by James Forbes chiefly to illustrate his work "Oriental Memoirs," published in four volumes between 1813 and 1815. The majority of the illustrations are either engraved or hand-drawn and then coloured, and have been cut out and mounted on paper. In many cases, a background has been drawn in and coloured or partially coloured. Approximately thirty of the images depict tropical birds, many from the Indian subcontinent, as well as some from Brazil and Australia. A number of these drawings also feature insects, particularly butterflies, and trees and flowers. Fifteen drawings depict bird eggs, including many of forest birds. The images generally contain captions by Forbes or a contemporary, identifying the subject of the drawing. Some birds are unidentified. Numerous drawings also contain species identifications or annotations in pencil by Henry Mousely, librarian of the Blacker Wood Library at McGill University during the 1920s and 1930s. These drawings are tentatively dated to approximately 1811. A note on one drawing indicates that it was originally based on drawings created during Forbes's voyages during the 1780s, then recopied in 1811. Items 44 through 57 depict snakes and reptiles and are tentatively dated to between approximately 1811 and 1818, based on a small number of drawings which are signed and dated. Many of these drawings of snakes and reptiles feature as plates in Patrick Russell's "A Continuation of an Account of Indian Serpents: Containing Descriptions and Figures, from Specimens and Drawings" (1801).
The Taylor White Collection is comprised of 938 watercolour paintings of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. White, a British jurist, commissioned various artists of the day (including Charles Collins, Peter Paillou, Jacob Van Huysum, George Edwards, and Eleazar Albin) to paint these animal portraits from live and dead specimens brought back to England from around the world. Many of the paintings are accompanied by loose-leaf manuscript notes, written mainly by White in Latin, providing further information about the animal; transcriptions and English translations of these notes have been provided within the record for each painting.
The collection consists of correspondence, research files, manuscripts, journals, and ephemera created and accumulated by writer and scholar Leon Edel, who was notably the editor and biographer of Henry James as well as Edmund Wilson.
Contains copies of fur trade documents bearing on the Mandan-Hidatsa trade with North West Company posts in central Canada, 1793-1805. Includes the journals of John Macdonell (McGill), David Thompson (Archives of Ontario), François-Antoine Larocque (LAC & Université de Montréal, Baby Collection. Draft before publication of: Early fur trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian traders among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818 : the narratives of John Macdonell, David Thompson, Franc̦ois-Antoine Larocque, and Charles McKenzie / edited and with an introduction by W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, c1985.
Contains "characters of different plays as performed at the Theatre, King Street" consist of speeches, extracted from the plays, which were deemed particularly striking or typical of the personage. When the Loyalists from the American colonies migrated to New Brunswick in 1783, theatricals were part of the new community's life. The first dramatic performance for public charity took place in the long room of Mallard's Tavern, King Street, in 1789. Performances at various times were given during the following years. Two actors involved in the theatre were Jonathan and Stephen Sewell. Saint John's first exclusively theatrical building was erected in Drury Lane, around 1805. However, the theatre at Drury Lane began experiencing financial difficulties and the building was finally sold in 1816. The new owners attempted to continue Drury Lane's theatrical life by the introduction of a professional company, but finances did not improve and the life of the Saint John theatre ended.
The F.R. Scott Collection contains documents pertaining to many differents aspects of F.R. Scott's life and career. His early political involvement in CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the political party at the origin of the creation of the federal New Democratic Party [NDP]) constitutes one series; his interest in poetry another one. Also some important legal actions are documented here about language and education rights in Quebec schools. The last series contains more personal items probably gathered for an official commemorative service: tributes, press clippings. Includes F.R. Scott's passport for Montreal's Expo 1967.
The collection consists of four early Irish manuscripts assembled by the Montreal collector Edward Murphy as part of his private library. The manuscripts include a copy of The Midnight Court (Cúirt an mheán oíche) by Brian Merriman, the Life of St. Patrick by John Chambers, Tri Biorghaoithe an Bhais (Three shafts of death) by Geoffrey Keating, and a fragment of an Irish vocabulary (Nuadhfoclóir bogcruaideach).
Affidavit concerning Bown’s controversy with the Hudson’s Bay Company over the printing by the Nor’-Wester of a petition on memorial dealing with imprisonment of Dr. John Schultz. It is dated 10 July 1868 at St. Cloud Minn. Note: Part of Exhibit A, and all of Exhibits B, C, & D are missing.
