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10 Jun
Engraving showing a large salon room lined with bookshelves and large floor-to-ceiling windows. A man and woman in early eighteenth-century clothing are seated at a table in the center of the room.

Women’s Libraries & Their Afterlives

Wednesday, 10 June 2026

Women’s book collections appear in a wide range of forms: as catalogued libraries; as groups of surviving books linked by inscription and family use; or as volumes dispersed but still …

Engraving showing a large salon room lined with bookshelves and large floor-to-ceiling windows. A man and woman in early eighteenth-century clothing are seated at a table in the center of the room.

Current
Exhibitions

Objects of Poetry

The cover of the Cuban children's book, "Compas de Fantasia," showing waves with the yellow title on leaping black outlines of dolphins.
  • Date
    Late Spring through Summer 2026
  • Location
    Hosted by Rare Book School Rare Book School on the second floor of Shannon Library at the University of Virginia
  • Exhibition Curators
    Barbara Heritage & Zoe Langer

Color. Shape. Movement. Craft. Poetry survives not just as streams of words, but also as material artifacts that have lives and stories of their own. Forms and words are richly entangled, inseparably expressive.

This exhibition highlights the tangible forms that make poetry possible. From metal to silk—parchment to paper pulp—calligraphy to typography—this show is a feast for the senses.

A rectangular graphic has a pale green background edged by a light blue and green frame. At the bottom of the graphic is a horizontal red box. Against the green, large decorative text reads "Famous & Forgotten: The Game of Authors", with the text surrounding a fanned set of playing cards showing author portraits. The red box below has further details of the exhibition.

All Exhibitions

Since 1992, Rare Book School has curated a wide range of exhibitions at the University of Virginia, as well as at the Grolier Club in New York.

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