A look in foreign language publications
Some of the most famous English, Russian, German etc. books are kept in The Old and Rare Prints Department. These books were published in different countries, by the best artists in the world during the time period of 1851–1945. They are written in Latin, English, Polish, Russian, French, Spanish, German languages.
Trip around the world of English literature with Charles Dickens and Jane Austin
English books that are kept in The Old and Rare Prints Department are very valuable – these publications are written by the most famous writers from a great number of countries.
Arthur Conan Doyle with his famous Sherlock Holmes, Hans Christian Andersen with his miraculous fairy tales, Jane Austin with her romantic novels – it‘s only a small part of the classic books kept in the fund. Who wouldn’t want to turn pages of “Robinson Crusoe”, written in 1905 by Daniel Defoe, published in English language, or “A Christmas Carrol” published several years later by Charles Dickens. Besides these classic works of art, you can find books by H. De Balzac, C. Baudelaire, J. M. Barrie, Emily Brontë, Anton Chekhov, Dante Alighieri, Henrik Ibsen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and even 11 different Oscar Wilde books, written in English language.
As far as the publications of the books are concerned, it is important to mention that the countries and cities vary. There is no wonder, that most of the books written in English language were published in the USA and Great Britain. There are also books from Ireland, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Russia; there are even books from Japan, India, Taiwan, Philippines and South African Republic. These books are special not only because of their content, but also because of eye-catching fancy covers and beautiful illustrations. Sometimes it seems that a cover of a book tells a completely separate story. English books, that are kept in The Old and Rare Prints Department, will intrigue even the most picky reader!
Interesting Latin books
You can find publications by Aristotle, St. Aurelius Augustine, Gaius Julius Caesar, Virgil, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Demosthenes and other well-known philosophers, historians and thinkers of Antiquity in The Old and Rare Prints Department. Here lies well-known “Odyssey” by Homer and “Metamorphoses” by Ovid.
Topics of Latin books vary, but mostly you can find books on religion. Nevertheless, there are studies concerning history, philosophy, fiction, literature sciences; some publications on politics and law. Most of the books in the fund were published in Leipzig, Germany. There are some books (printed in Leipzig) which belong to the famous series Bibliotheca Teubneriana (or Teubner) (the full name of the series is Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana). This well-known series consists of critical editions of the most famous Antique (and Middle Ages) texts, written in Greek and Latin languages and enriched with remarks and corrected mistakes from the previous editions.
