IN MEMORY OF
JAMES LENOX
A NATIVE AND RESIDENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
BORN AUGUST 19 1800
DIED FEBRUARY 17 1880
THE TRUSTEES OF
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
IN PERFORMANCE OF A GRATEFUL DUTY
HAVE CAUSED THIS TABLET TO BE PLACED
HERE AMONG THE BOOKS HE CHERISHED
AS A MEMORIAL OF HIS SERVICES
TO THE HISTORY OF AMERICA
From the corridors on the front and sides of the third floor, rooms open in the following order, beginning with the corridor at the south, running along the 40th Street side of the building:
PART OF MAIN READING ROOM
Reserve Books (No. 303): In this room are kept the rare and reserved books of the Library.
Among the foremost treasures of the Library are: the Gutenberg Bible (printed by Gutenberg and Fust about 1455, one of the earliest books printed from movable types); the Coverdale Bible (1535); Tyndale's Pentateuch (1530) and New Testament (1536); and Eliot's Indian Bible. In fact, the collection of early Bibles in English is one of the great collections of the kind in existence. The Library also owns four copies of the First Folio Shakespeare (1623); several copies of the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios (1632, 1663-64, 1685); thirty-five editions of the Shakespeare Quartos, before 1709; eight works printed by William Caxton (1475-90); the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the territory now comprised in the United States (Cambridge, 1640); and the Doctrina Christiana, printed in Mexico in 1544.
BOOK STACK
(Showing Half the Length of One Deck)