Volker Schröder

@marphurius.bsky.social

316 Followers 467 Following

Associate prof of French (emeritus) at Princeton. Working mostly on 17th-cy literature and culture, with a focus on bibliography, including manuscripts and prints. Research blog: anecdota.princeton.edu. Also on Mastodon: @Marphurius@hcommons.social

Estienne VOUILLEMONT - Le jeu de la sphere ou de l[']univers selon Tyco Brahe. Paris, l'auteur, 1661; Ibid, A. de Fer, 1671. Copper engraving, 38 x 52.6 cm.

The beginning of a handwritten letter from Claude Monet and his wife Camille to Edouard Manet: "Argenteuil 13 mai 74. Mon cher Manet. Je me décide à suivre votre conseil s'il en est temps encore, j'ai besoin d'argent mais comme quinze-cents francs sont en somme peu de chose voici ce que je vous prie de proposer de ma part à Monsieur Faure."

“La Jungla (The Jungle),” 1942-43. A crowd of figures jammed against a solid wall composed of stalks of sugar cane, with faces resembling Picassoid versions of African masks.Credit...Succession Wifredo Lam, Adagp, Paris/ARS, NY; via The Museum of Modern Art, New York

When writing lyrics, for instance, Bowie sometimes used a cutup technique, jotting phrases down on paper, snipping them into fragments and then rearranging them.

Lubin BAUGIN (Pithiviers 1610 - Paris 1663). "Nature morte aux financiers, au verre de vin et à la miche de pain". Panneau de chêne, deux planches, non parqueté 46,5 x 60 cm. Signé en bas à droite BAVGIN.

excerpt from a catalog record on WorldCat showing a lengthy collation formula

Printer's mark of Johannes Herwagen on the title page of AESOPI PHRYGIS FABVLAE GRAECE ET LATINE, Basel 1544

Screenshot from an online lecture by Paul Needham on impressions of nailheads in various copies of the Mainz Catholicon (1460-1473)

Korrektur: Die große Schauspielerin Helen Mirren ist am vergangenen Samstag nicht, wie wir zum Tag behaupteten, siebzig Jahre alt geworden, sondern achtzig. Wir konnten uns das unter dem Eindruck ihrer jüngsten Auftritte nicht vorstellen und bedauern den Fehler. F.A.Z. (Last Saturday the great actress Helen Mirren did not turn, as we stated on that day, seventy but eighty. We could not envision this under the impression of her latest performances and regret the mistake.)

“Happy Valley,” by Emma Webster. Credit: via the artist

André Gide and his daughter Catherine Gide (Ascona, 1947) — © Photo : Richard Heyd

Photo of the prints and drawings consultation room at the Louvre in Paris, France

Front cover of volume 1 of "Les lieux de mémoire" edited by Pierre Nora

Drawing of a bull trying to push a big metal globe up a steep mountain with a human face

the family tree of Pope Leo XIV

Illustration of a 19th-century rare book auction with the caption: At Sotheby's, London. "Gentlemen, this book is cheap at £5. A hundred years hence you will sell it for ten times that amount."

An original ticket for the first performance of Alfred Jarry's comedy "Ubu Roi", made out to M. Perrot (Victor Perrot, 1865-1963)

“Celestial Eyes,” a gouache by painter and graphic designer Francis Cugat, created for the dust jacket of the first edition of The Great Gatsby (Princeton University Library)

A chart titled "The Cool Zone - A rumour seesaw for stonks" highlighting the ups and downs of the S&P500 on the morning of April 7, 2025 (Source: Factset, via the Financial Times)

Catalog record of an anonymous drawing, "Flemish or Italian school around 1600", view of Santa Maria della Febbre, pen and brown ink

photo showing first page and address panel of a handwritten letter from George Wheler to Jacob Spon

three dealer's descriptions of a book from the library of Madame de Pompadour (Lodovico Domenichi, Facetie, motti, et burle, Venice 1599)

Bollinger: We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. It’s been coming and coming, and not everybody is prepared to read it that way. The characters regarded as people to emulate, like Orban and Putin and so on, all indicate that the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing. Our problem in part is a failure of imagination. We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions. You neutralize the branches of government; you neutralize the media; you neutralize universities, and you’re on your way.

We’re beginning to see the effects on universities. It’s very, very frightening.

Frontispiece and title page of the first English edition of "Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories Told By The Sultaness of the Indies..." (London, 1706)

Landing page for the exhibition website Versailles on Paper (Princeton University Library, 2015)

Engraving by Noël Le Mire after Charles Eisen, with the medallion of Montesquieu at center, surrounded by four allegorical figures: the Genius of Literature, Love, Justice, Nature