Staten Island Students Join Graduate Seminar to Participate in NYPL Workshop on Early Modern Book History and Printing

On March 28, Staten Island Undergraduates Joe Pellrine (2016) and Jackie Lapore (2017) were given the opportunity to meet with Dr. Melissa Mowry’s graduate Milton Seminar at the New York Public Library to participate in an exciting workshop conducted by Michael Inman, Curator of Rare Books and Faculty Member at the prestigious Rare Book School.  

TheEnglish B.A./M.A. dual degreecurriculum offers students the opportunity to develop programs of study that meet their intellectual and professional goals. St. John’s metropolitan and global values were fostered on this visit to the New York City Public Library as the undergraduate students met with professionals in their field and witnessed the birth of new literature in connection to their English studies.

Mr. Inman offered students an overview of the rise of printing from Johannes Gutenberg through the English civil wars (1642-1646, 1648) that included information about what an early modern print shop looked like, how type was set, how paper was made, and how letters were forged.  Additionally, students were treated to a copy of the Catholicon (1460), the only work after the Gutenberg Bible with which Gutenberg himself was verifiably involved, the stunning beauty of several hand-illuminated early printed books, a first folio of Mr. William ShakespearesHistories, Commedies and Tragedies (1623), a first printing of John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644), as well as several works by other dissident writers from the 1640s.