New Exhibitions at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

Trees in Fact and Fable
April 9 through May 25, 2007
The spreading chestnut, the Charter Oak, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Yggdrasil, the olive branch, the laurel wreath. Trees and images of trees pervade our language, our history, our poetry, and our mythologies. This unsystematic romp through the collections of the Beinecke Library gathers books with representations of trees. Included are botanical books from four centuries, first trees, biblical trees, sacred trees, mythological trees, family trees, emblematic trees, and literary trees, from Ovid, Dante, and Shakespeare to Goethe, Longfellow, and Joyce Kilmer. [ca. 150 items]

Collecting an Empire: The East India Company (1600-1900)
March 26 through early June 2007
As the quintessential instrument of imperial conquest, the British East India Company, with its commercial, political, and aesthetic concerns, tells a rich, conflicted story of engagement between two cultures. This exhibit brings together a diverse, multi-lingual range of Indian and British objects, illuminated mythological manuscripts, maps, letters, official proclamations, diaries, ship logs, company dictionaries, travel journals, novels, and broadsides from various Beinecke Library collections. [ca. 60 items]