The Grolier Club of New York

Our Pride month celebrations continue with a q***r woman who, if at least one early Grolierite had his way, could have been the Club’s first woman member: imagist poet Amy Lowell. Lowell was a serious collector, especially of literary manuscripts, whose larger-than life presence made her a polarizing figure in the book world. One of her greatest champions was A. Edward Newton, who promoted her collection in his writing and, as he tells it, “damn near broke up the Grolier Club” trying to make her a member. Opinion on Lowell was definitely divided at the Club. When then-Librarian Ruth Granniss reached out to Keats collectors on Lowell’s behalf in 1921, one wrote back “Amy Lowell! I’d rather not.” Interestingly enough, Lowell’s gender-transgressing behavior was one of the qualities that won her admirers. One of the letters that mentions Lowell in the Club’s archives includes a fond (but glib) reminiscence about a lecture she gave at the Club of Odd Volumes. Lowell’s cigar smoking, he writes, qualified her to take part in that men’s only space.

ONE NIGHT ONLY – The Grolier Club of New York will host on Thursday, June 25, the American premiere presentation, in a rehearsed reading, of Colin Murphy’s play 'Inside the GPO' as the concluding event of its Risings Festival.

The play, which premiered in Dublin in 2016 to rave reviews and capacity audiences, has been reimagined for The Grolier Club’s Ground Floor Gallery and will be directed by Aoife Spillane-Hinks (). 'Inside the GPO' tells the true story of the Irish rebellion of 1916, which made its headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin. The play takes place across the five days of the Easter Rising, from the seizure of the GPO to its tragic finale, with Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Tom Clarke amongst the protagonists.

Admission is free. Book via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1986555069690?aff=oddtdtcreator

This week we highlight some of our new members’ interests in beautiful yet unusual bindings.
Bexx Caswell-Olson is drawn to delicate embroidered bindings created by women, likely for their own personal use. Alexandra (Allie) Alvis, meanwhile, is interested in arsenic-green bindings and other books whose physical materials carry stories that extend beyond the texts they contain.

Visit New Members Collect 2026 Monday through Saturday, from 10:00am. to 5:00pm. Admission is free.

Find out more here: https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/new-members-collect-2026

Photo credits: Nicole Neenan

Slide 1:
Julie Delafaye-Bréhier. Les Jeunes Filles, ou le Monde et le Solitude. Paris: Alexís Eymery, 1822.
John Tallis. Tallis’s History and Description of the Crystal Palace, and the Exhibition of the World’s Industry in 1851. London and New York: J. Tallis and Co., 1852.
J.-B.-J. Champagnac. Le Prix d’Encouragement du Premier Age ou le Précepte et l’Example. Paris: Librairie de l’Enfance et de la Jeunesse, P. - C. Lehuby, circa 1830.

Slide 2:
The Book of Common Prayer. Oxford: University Press, c. 1905.
The Book of Common Prayer. Oxford: University Press, c. 1900.

The Grolier Club continues its celebration of Pride Month by highlighting one of our longest-serving Librarians, Robert Nikirk. “Bob,” as he’s fondly remembered by many long-time Grolier Club members, ran the Club from February 1970, at just 31 years old, until his premature death from complications relating to HIV/AIDS in September 1990. He steered the Club through momentous changes: the beginning of women’s membership in 1976; our centennial in 1984; as well as a major renovation of our Exhibition Hall, lobby, and archives in 1987; and transforming our collections into an accessible research library by joining RLIN. He recognized his own impact on the institution, admitting that “It is perhaps not too much to say that the Grolier Club at any given time is in some degree a reflection of the incumbent [Librarian], a combination of librarian, curator, and manager.” One of the seven Club presidents Nikirk worked with, G. Thomas Tanselle, went a step further, recognizing how Nikirk shaped the culture of the Club by his own example: “He epitomized the combination of the scholarly and the social that makes the Club itself unique: he knew the history of books and collecting, and he also knew how to give a party.”

This week, we highlight the collections of Kinohi Nishikawa and Nicholas Mignanelli.
Kinohi’s collection explores the Black Arts Movement (BAM), a cultural movement active from 1965 to 1975 that sought to create politically engaged, accessible art for Black audiences.
Nicholas, who is currently compiling a bibliography of Chancellor Kent’s Commentaries on American Law, focuses on early American legal literature and its history.

Visit New Members Collect 2026 Monday through Saturday, from 10:00am. to 5:00pm. Admission is free.

Find out more here: https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/new-members-collect-2026

Photo credits: Nicole Neenan
Slide 1:
Johari Amini (Jewel C. Latimore). A Folk Fabel (For My People). Chicago: Third World Press, 1969.
LeRoi Jones. Black Art. Newark: Jihad Productions, 1966.
Carolyn Thompson. Frank. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1970.

Slide 2:
James Gould. A Treatise on the Principles of Pleading, in Civil Actions. Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832.
Tapping Reeve. The Law of Baron and Femme; Of Parent and Child; Of Guardian and Ward; Of Master and Servant; And of the Powers of Courts of Chancery. With an Essay on the Terms, Heir, Heirs, and Heirs of the Body. New Haven: Printed by Oliver Steele, 1816.
Ephraim Kirby. Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut. From the Year 1785, to May, 1788; With Some Determinations in the Supreme Court of Errors. Litchfield: Printed by Collier & Adams, 1789.

We’re continuing our celebration of Pride Month at the Grolier Club by highlighting Monroe Wheeler (1899-1988), a member from 1933 until his death. Wheeler joined the Club around the time he moved to New York City from Paris, where he had co-founded a small press, Harrison of Paris. He published thirteen limited editions with his business partner Barbara Harrison Wescott, the sister-in-law of Wheeler’s life partner Glenway Wescott. Wheeler donated seven of their publications to the Club Library in 1977, including two works by Glenway Wescott. The Harrison of Paris imprint quietly closed after the three Americans moved to New York, but it prepared Wheeler to run MoMA’s publications department from 1940-1967 and to steer The Grolier Club Publications Committee as its longest-serving chair from 1947-1962. At the start of this new chapter in his career, Wheeler’s friend Paul Cadmus painted a group portrait of him, Glenway Wescott, and their third partner, the photographer George Platt Lynes, musing over magazines at the Wescotts’ New Jersey country house, Stone Blossom: A Conversation Piece (1939-1940, Boston MFA, 2010.753). We like to think the Harrison of Paris publications, several designed by Wheeler, offer a different kind of portrait, where his taste, bibliophilic spirit, and relationships also shine through.

Join us next Thursday, June 11, for an evening discussing LGBTQ+ in Print!

How have members of the LGBTQ+ community, throughout centuries, left record on the printed or handwritten page, or glaring absences? Where do we look today for their traces, and what are best practices for interpretation? A panel of experts including Charlotte Priddle, Director of NYU Special Collections; librarian/book dealer/scholar Gwendolyn Reese; Dr. Miranda Garno Rossa, proprietor of Marginalia Rare Books in California; and Elyssa Maxx Goodman, author of Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City (and a contributor to including The New York Times, Vogue, and Vanity Fair) will explore how they identify, place, and preserve the physical materials that foster research and publications in this realm.
The program will be moderated by Chris Hammer, Grolier Club member, historian, archivist, and scholar of 1950s-'90s q***r literature.

Register at grolierclub.org

New Members Collect 2026 is now open in our Second Floor Gallery! Drawn from the collections of 17 Grolier Club members, this exhibition explores the theme of “Networks,” bringing together works that once rested on fantasy writers’ desks, traveled aboard polar exploration ships, circulated through de-extinction startup offices, or still bear traces of literal toxicity.

Each week, we’ll feature collector’s notes from each of our contributing members that offer insight into their collecting origin stories and continued motivations today.
This week, we’re featuring items from Jonah Rosenberg. Slide through to learn more about Jonah's interests.

"My book collecting is magpie-ish, a quilt of scraps rather than a finely-woven cloth. The two parallel columns — cookery and Classics — really have very little to do with one another (though their rare overlap, viz. Apicius, whose best manuscript at the New York Academy of Medicine I’d be keen to acquire if they ever sold it, is perhaps most appealing). I am a recovering Classicist and an active cook, but my collecting is split more evenly than that would indicate."

To get the full story, visit New Members Collect in person Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, or visit us online at our link in bio.

Photography by Nicole Neenan.

The Grolier Club Library is celebrating the beginning of Pride Month by highlighting one of the very first q***r bibliographies: Pierre Gustave Brunet's 1861 "Dissertation sur l’Alcibiade, Fanciullo a Scola...accompagnée de Notes et d’une Postface." This bibliography began as Brunet’s translation of a scarce Italian pamphlet disputing the authorship of "Alcibiades the Schoolboy," a fictionalized defense of homosexuality in the style of a Socratic dialogue, first published in Venice in 1651. Brunet's translation becomes the springboard for his own thorough bibliographical research, beginning with the two known surviving editions of the "Alcibiade," the value of these copies on the market, and their recorded owners past and present. He appends what he describes as a study of “writings in the nature of the Alcibiades”, effectively his research on the history of homosexuality in print and manuscript. He closes with a bibliography of works about so**my printed between 1574 to 1841, with supplemental notes about works dealing with its persecution.

Brunet's publisher. Jules Gay, would go on to issue his own edition of the "Alcibiade" the following year. Brunet, who hid under the pseudonym "a French bibliophile" was perhaps wise to do so, as Gay's edition would be condemned by the Parisian government.

Join The Grolier Club and the Irish Arts Center for a special Bloomsday, June 16th, evening of traditional Irish music, featuring Cashel Blake Day-Lewis on fiddle, Ursula Garry on flute, Matt Stapleton on guitar, and Isaac Alderson on the uilleann pipes.

This event is available for online attendance only. Register via the link in our bio to receive the livestream access. See our Eventbrite for details about all events in the Risings Festival: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/risings-4835183

Visit “Risings” Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, or visit online: https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/risings