In 1965 Helen and Ruth Regenstein, the wife and daughter of Joseph Regenstein, Sr., established the Helen and Ruth Regenstein Collection of Rare Books in order to secure for the University of Chicago Library excellent copies of important works of literature and the humanities in first or early editions. The Collection has made it possible for the Library to acquire rare masterpieces of English and American literature--for example, the Kilmarnock edition of Robert Burns's Poems (1786) and a presentation copy of Melville's The Whale (1851)--and to deepen its holdings of major English-language authors such as Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens. Since its inception, the Regenstein Collection has grown to include nearly 3,000 books that range in date from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, with the primary focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Past exhibits about the Regenstein Collection:
The Helen and Ruth Regenstein Collection of Rare Books: Recent Additions