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Title
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Gessner's Owl
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Description
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Tucked among the magical storehouses of Diagon Alley is a shop that is always dark in order to accommodate the preferences of its nocturnal inhabitants. This is Eeylops Owl Emporium—and the setting for Harry Potter's adoption of his pet, Hedwig, who remains one of his truest companions throughout his school years. The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner depicted many owls in his volume dedicated to birds, including this handsome grey owl with his abundance of downy feathers and keenly intelligent eyes. Owls of all types appear throughout the series, retaining the cultural associations they've had for centuries of both wisdom and omens.
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Collection
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How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course
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Title
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Aldrovandi's Basilisk
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Description
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All hail the king of the snakes! Basilisks—from the Greek basiliskos, for "little king," are depicted in many early modern natural histories and were said to be the kings of the serpents (Dark Arts students will recognize them for their diadem-shaped crests). J.K. Rowling preserves many details of the accounts from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about this terrifying snake, including his birth from a chicken's egg hatched under a toad, and a gaze that could kill. Susceptible to wizard control by some Parselmouths, only Tom Riddle proved snake-charmer enough to ever challenge one.
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Collection
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How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course
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Title
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Spider, Hortus Sanitatis
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Description
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Even arachnophobes may be well-disposed to this spider, who dates to the 1499 publication of the Hortus Sanitatis (here he appears in our 1517 edition). Spiders were often depicted in early printed books using pictographic shapes, drawing on an earlier medieval tradition. Here, our spider scrambles up a tightly circular web, his thorax evenly studded in a grid design. He may not look scary, but the accompanying text offers strong evidence that this spider might have caused worry, just as J.K. Rowling's giant spider Aragog did. The authors of this early modern tome included several botanical remedies for spider bites.
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Collection
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How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course
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Title
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West Port murders; or, an authentic account of the atrocious murders committed by Burke and his associates, containing a full account of all the extraordinary circumstances connected with them. Also, a report of the trial of Burke and M'Dougal, with a description of the execution of Burke, his confessions, and memoirs of his accomplices, including the proceedings against Hare, &c.
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Description
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Disbound book. Engraved frontispiece (artist, George Andrew Lutenor; engraver, Thomas Clerk). Illustrated with engravings. Includes drawings by Walter Geikie. Has broadside titled "The West Port Murders" tipped in (14 cm.).
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Collection
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The Resurrectionists
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Title
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Valentine's Twelfth Key
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Description
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In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry learns that the alchemist Nicolas Flamel successfully created the philosopher's stone; in reality, reports of Flamel's reputation as an alchemist and immortal were greatly exaggerated. Jean-Jacques Manget's Bibliotheca Curiosa, published in 1702, compiled many alchemical texts and included Basil Valentine's The Twelve Keys. Valentine's work offered twelve plates that symbolically depicted methods to achieve the philosopher's stone. In this last operation, the final step in realizing the stone, a sun and moon illuminate a laboratory where an alchemist stands in front of a blazing furnace and tends to two roses, as a lion devours a snake.
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Collection
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How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course
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Title
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Pomet's Unicorns
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Description
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If you visit Mr. Mulpepper's or Slug & Jiggers Apothecary in Diagon Alley, among the remedies available for a few scant Galleons is unicorn horn. In his comprehensive catalog of plants and animals used for medicinal purposes, the French apothecary Pierre Pomet identifies five species of unicorns, though he is quick to admit that most unicorn horns sold in shops are probably from narwhals. Narwhal or not, these horns were worn as protective amulets, used to cure fevers and rout poisons. They were also displayed as curiosities in pre-Revolution-era France.
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Collection
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How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course
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Title
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One Month Doesn't Make a Summer
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Description
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This postcard states that "731 babies [were] saved in July," and reproduces excerpts from the August 2, 1911 editions of the New York Globe, the New York Herald, the New York American, and the New York World to remind readers that the reduction in infant mortality must be continued in August. On the back, an illustration of a healthy baby accompanies quotations advising readers about "what can be done" to help babies and reminding them that "while there's care there's hope."
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Subjects (LC)
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Infants, Mortality, Summer, Nutrition, Weather, Health, Municipal government, Statistics, Statistics, Milk
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ID
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mk1e008
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Collection
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New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection
Pages
![A Simple Catechism [from verso]](https://digitalcollections.nyam.org/sites/default/files/styles/islandora_imagecache_image_style_medium/public/externals/a49a704a237456bb670160bbbfb84446.jpg?itok=wAd2N1X3&pid=digital:86&iic=true&solr_nav%5Bid%5D=1cef35b518891e197042&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=5)
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