Widener Shows Rare Originals of Readings Used in New Courses

Widener Library excavated the contents of its musty vaults this week, and the result is the latest library exhibit featuring rare first editions of many of the celebrated works used in the new General Education Courses.

Included among the Humanities texts, now on display on the first floor of Widener, are the first draft of Keat's "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer," a presentation copy of the Pope "Iliad," dated 1705, with the author's name inscribed, and several early sixteenth century editions of Greek drama from the presses of Aldus Minutius in Geneva.

On the social sciences plane, the exhibit features the first edition of Nietzche's "Geneologie de Moral," the first written presentation of Einstein's Corpuscular Theory of Light, and the first edition of Millikan's "The Electron."

In addition to the rare book sampling, various curriculum lists from past Harvard years and the current editions of the course textbooks are also shown, the last in many cases coming right from the Coop or the Phillips Book store window.