The Rare Book Collection at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library is rich. The collection broadly supports the teaching and research of The University of Alabama in many ways.  Besides individual researchers, the Rare Books Collection is used in bibliographic instruction to illustrate to students in many areas book history, and to gain a better sense of the link between the text and knowledge. Courses in European and American History (for example: Medieval, Age of Reason, French Revolution); Music and Musicology; English; and Art all visit the Hoole Library on a regular basis to make these important collections.

It includes incunabula, titles from seventeenth and eighteenth century France and Britain, and eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century American works, including significant holdings documenting the Mississippi valley and travel and exploration in early America. Additionally, there are significant holdings relating to New Orleans and Louisiana. Our earliest imprint in the Rare Book Collection is a rubricated copy of Thomas A Kempis, De Imitatione Christi, dated 1483.

Some specific areas within the collection are early French and English dictionaries and historical works, Confederate Imprints, a large number of nineteenth and early twentieth century works on the Civil War. Discreet named collections on the works of the works of Lafcadio Hearn and first editions of Sir Walter Scott are also housed in the Hoole Library.

Significant holdings of first editions by authors such as Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and John A. Williams are part of the Rare Books Collection.

Also falling under Rare Books is our Book Arts Collection, which is comprised of examples of fine and experimental printing and binding which supports the MFA program in the Book Arts in the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama.

Our book holdings are accessible through the libraries' catalog. Setting search limits by location and date range will help facilitate searches for particular materials. If you need assistance of have questions, contact us.

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