A 19th-century lithograph by William Simpson depicting French troops storming a smoke-filled hill during the Battle of Malakoff in the Crimean War

Victorian Studies Crimea

Taken from William Simpson’s The Seat of War in the East 1855-6, just one of the Library’s large Victorian Studies collection.
An antique painting depicting figures gathering outside a traditional Chinese house in a landscape of green, terraced hills.

Travel China

The Gibson Library has a collection of 19th century Chinese watercolours on pith paper along with a number of 19th century illustrated books about China.
An antique image showing a large waterfall flowing through steep cliffs of vertical columnar basalt, with two 19th-century explorers in the foreground.

Sunbirds

Hand-coloured lithographic plates drawn by Johannes Keulemans from A Monograph of the Nectariniidae of Family of Sunbirds, G.E.Shelley (1876-80). Only 250 copies were ever printed of this book, part of the Gibson Library’s collection.
An illustration of insects, including ladybirds and beetles

Insect Books

Thomas Martyn’s The English entomologist exhibiting all the coleopterous insects found in England (1793) and L.M.Budgen’s Episodes of Insect Life (1849-51) are just two of many books on beetles, butterflies, moths and other insects in the collection.
A 19th-century lithograph showing people and sailboats along a shoreline with a grand Indian temple complex and fortified city in the background.

Travel India

The Victorians loved to travel and to read about travel. Explore the Gibson Library’s extensive collection of books about travel in Asia and Africa.
A vintage colour illustration of a red-footed tortoise with a black and yellow patterned shell walking on sandy ground.

Turtles

Lithographs by Edward Lear (of The Owl and the Pussycat fame) from Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles, Thomas Bell (1872). Just one book from many in the Gibson Library’s Zoology collection.
An antique engraving labeled Fig. 1 showing an ornate decorative ewer resting on its side inside a shallow, handled pan.

Archaeology

Images taken from several books in the Gibson Library detailing the archaeological investigations of Lord Braybrooke (R C Neville) of Audley End.
A 1851 colour lithograph showing Victorian visitors on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London during the Great Exhibition.

Great Exhibition

Illustrations from the full-colour record of the 1851 Great Exhibition. Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (1854), available to view in the Gibson Library along with other catalogues, tickets, cuttings and other ephemera relating to the event.
A close-up of a medieval illuminated manuscript page featuring an intricate blue and gold initial letter "D" and Latin Gothic script.

Illuminated Manuscripts

The Gibson Library is home to three medieval illuminated manuscripts. These illustrations come from a fifteenth-century Book of Hours by the ‘Master of the Golden Scrolls’.
Gibson Library's Book of the Month flyer featuring the book cover of "The History of Morris Dancing" by John Forrest

July Book of the Month

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