Founded in 1935 with the donation of Thomas B. Lockwood’s antiquarian collection, the Rare Book Collection comprises over 17,000 volumes from ca. 1450 to the early twentieth century, including all four 17^th-century Shakespeare Folios, important first editions of English literature like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, significant publications in the history of science including Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, fine press publications from the Kelmscott and Doves presses, and Western New York imprints. Additionally, it contains manuscript collections, a rare coin and medallion collection, and other materials, including three original illustrations by William Blake.

• The four 17th-century folio editions of Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies were the first published collections of William Shakespeare’s plays and consequently are some of the most significant titles in all of English literature. 

• The Walt Whitman digital collection brings together original Whitman correspondence and manuscripts from the Poetry Collection and Rare Books Collection, including an essay on Ralph Waldo Emerson published in Complete Prose Works (1892) and an essay about his own work, including Leaves of Grass.

• Charlotte Brontë is one of the most influential novelists of the 19th century. Lesser known is her poetry. The Wounded Stag and Other Poems presents 20 pages of poetry manuscripts written by Brontë.