Experience the works of the father of English poetry the way some of his earliest readers did via digital copies of his works held in our collections. Houghton has digitized two 16th century editions of Chaucer’s works. Richard Pynson published editions of The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and The House of Fame together in Read More

The multi-talented Edward Lear is probably best remembered today for The Owl and the Pussycat and other “nonsense books” as he called them, but his artistic skills far surpassed the whimsical sketches with which he illustrated those books. Our collection of Edward Lear Landscape Drawings includes more than 6000 digital images of Lear’s work, drawn Read More

In the 17th century, a book was a relatively expensive luxury, but single-sheet printed items were much more widely affordable. One particularly popular form was the broadside ballad, each containing a song that might be funny, scandalous, politically charged, or perhaps all of those at once. These printed ballads continue a long oral tradition of Read More

Currently, we are at a remove from our physical collections. The silver lining we’ve found in this is an opportunity to highlight our born-digital and digitized collections so you can explore them from wherever you are. We’re going to do just that in a series we call “Houghton From Home.” For more items from across Read More