Travel back in time at the New York Public Library where curators Elizabeth Denlinger and Charles Cuykendall Carter will show us some of the NYPL’s Pforzheimer Collection’s rich compilation of 18th and 19th century books and ephemera.

The Pforzheimer Collection was the creation of the financier Carl H. Pforzheimer (1879-1957), who took a special interest in the lives and works of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his contemporaries, including his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and such friends and fellow writers as Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and Edward John Trelawny.

The curators will discuss and show us a wide range of collateral materials supporting study of this period, including biographies, criticism, political and scientific treatises, grammars, dictionaries, almanacs, topical pamphlets, and broadsides related to issues of the day. Because Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneer of feminist thought, books and manuscripts we will be introduced to many lesser-known women writers of the period along with advice books, manuals on child-rearing, etiquette, domestic economy, and key proto-feminist texts.

Registration for this special event is free to everyone, on a first-come, first-served basis. Click on the registration link to sign up for this live Zoom webinar. We suggest downloading the Zoom software prior to the start of this event. We will send you event reminders, but we advise everyone to connect a few minutes prior to the start. The event waiting room will be open 10 minutes ahead of time.

The start time for the live event is:
10:00am LA/SF/Seattle (PST)
1:00pm New York (EST)
6:00pm London (BST)
7:00pm Berlin/Europe (CEST)
9:00pm Dubai (GST)
1:00am Seoul
2:00am Tokyo

Curator Elizabeth Denlinger specializes in British Romantic literature, promoting this area through classes, publications, digital projects, and exhibitions, such as Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era and Shelley’s Ghost: The Afterlife of a Poet.

Assistant curator Charles Carter processes and organizes the collection materials, and shares outreach duties with Elizabeth. He serves on the board of The American Printing History Association and is the Metadata Developer for The Shelley-Godwin Archive.

Founded in 1895, the New York Public Library is the largest public library system in the United States, featuring a unique combination of 88 neighborhood branches and four scholarly research centers.