Marsh's Library Exhibition

Beware the Jabberwock! an exhibition of books on the animal kingdom in Marsh’s Library was opened by Dr Martin Mansergh, T.D., Minister of State, on Tuesday June 30 2009.

The title comes from the nonsense poem about odd creatures in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The books have splendid woodcuts and engravings, There are books by famous 16th and 17th-century writers on natural history, covering exotic birds, butterflies and bees, elephants, horses, cats and tigers, reptiles and sea monsters. The exhibition includes many volumes by the Italian writer Ulisse Aldrovandi, whose magnificent work on natural history is regarded as the greatest zoological compendium of the early 17th century. The bird of paradise is shown in the massive encyclopaedia by the 16th-century Swiss writer Conrad Gesner. Other well known early writers on natural history on display in this exhibition are Thomas Moffett, the Comte de Buffon and Gulielmus Rondelet. Rondelet’s ‘Monkfish’ and ‘Bishopfish’ are both illustrated wearing their full clerical attire! Oliver Goldsmith’s Animated Nature is represented in the first Irish edition, published in Dublin in 1777.

The Exhibition is open to the public during the Library’s normal working Hours:

Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri.:
9.30–1.00 and 2.00–5.00;
Sat: 10.00–1.00. (Closed Tues. & Sun.)
It will continue until Spring 2010.

www.marshlibrary.ie