University of Illinois Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Established in 1936, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library has grown to over 300,000 books and over 7,130 linear feet of manuscripts. Particular strengths lie in early printing and the Elizabethan and Stuart periods in England, with works by Shakespeare, various important editions of the Bible, and renaissance school books standing out as distinctive and deep collections. The Library is also renowned for its collections of incunabula and emblem books, the collections in the history of Mark Twain and his age, as well as the papers of such notable figures as William Maxwell, W. S. Merwin, Marcel Proust, John Richardson, Carl Sandburg, Anthony Trollope, and H. G. Wells.