A Tale of Two Books: Two Sammelbände given to Antwerp by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

Assistant Professor Liza Blake examined two rare books which were donated to the Antwerp city library by the English noblewoman and author Margaret Cavendish, Marchioness of Newcastle (1623-1673). In this article she stresses the importance of this donation and explains why these particular copies merit further investigation.

Georges Eekhoud: the Belgian Maxim Gorki

The Belgian author Georges Eekhoud (1854 – 1927), who lived in Flanders but wrote in French, was one of the first authors who wrote positively about homosexuality. Eekhoud’s personal library is a key collection in the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.

Forgotten chansons de geste?

New acquisition of a rare 16th-century romance of chivalry

Recently a rare copy of a Dutch epic poem (chanson de geste) printed in 1576 in Antwerp turned up at an auction. With the help of the Patronage Fund for Books and Literature the Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience acquired this copy of the romance of Roncevale.

The Esperanto collection of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library

In 2016, the Hendrik Conscience Library acquired a large part of the library of the Flandra Esperanto-Ligo or Flemish Esperanto League. We’re talking to Esperantist Cyreen Knockaert, who has been cataloguing this collection for us as a volunteer.

Pornography in the library

Interaction between porn and literature in Flanders

Until recently, pornography has mostly been neglected by literary scholars and historians. Academic attention to pornographic texts was confined to a small range of literary authors with a canonical status, such as the notorious libertine author Marquis de Sade. Similarly, librarians were not interested in pornographic publications, which usually circulated in a secondary circuit of junk reading. As a result of this, the mass of these pulp publications, printed on low-quality paper and deemed unworthy of keeping, has vanished through time.

Ulysses to Baedeker

Three centuries of travel advice in pocket size

Gerrit Verhoeven is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History of the University of Antwerp. As an urban historian, he specialises in early modern Europe, particularly – but not only – the Low Countries and Western Europe. He has published on travel and tourism, on time awareness and human capital, on the resilience of social relations, and on book history. In this blogpost he writes about the research potential of travel guides kept in the collection of Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.

A virtual visit to the Nottebohm Room

Hidden gem now available online

The Nottebohm Room is a true hidden gem. The first 150,000 items in the library’s catalogue are preserved here in this breath-taking, historical setting. The doors only swing open for exhibitions, lectures, concerts or guided tours. And when they do, it’s like a breath of magic. Until now. Now you can visit this magical room from home.