Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Many a 20th century herpetologist credits his or her early interest in herpetology to the books of Raymond Ditmars. He published eight books on amphibians and reptiles for children and adults alike and, although many professionals consider him merely a popularizer and a showman, his scientific and public contributions to herpetology were substantial. When he was hired as Assistant Curator in charge of reptiles at the Bronx Zoo in 1899, his personal collection of reptiles formed the nucleus of the zoo’s collection. Later on in his career, he was active in developing techniques for curing reptile diseases, produced nature movies, created a clearing house for distribution of antivenins produced in Brazil, and co-founded an American antivenin institute. He was a popular lecturer as well.

Raymond Lee Ditmars. The Book of Prehistoric Animals, 1935. Ellis Omnia D50

Although this volume (and several others authored by Ditmars) is from the Ellis Collection of natural history, the Department of Special Collections also has a collection of children’s literature, more than 7,000 volumes from the late 18th to early 20th century, including lots of natural history. In fact, books for children, from a 16th-century gardening manual to 20th-century science fiction, turn up in almost all of our collections, and in them, herps abound.

Sally Haines
Rare Book Cataloger

Adapted from her Spencer Research Library exhibit and catalog, Slithy Toves: Illustrated Classic Herpetological Books at the University of Kansas in Pictures and Conversations

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 29,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

University Archives is home to a wealth of materials about KU athletics, including programs for the football team (as well as the men’s and women’s basketball teams). The advertisements in the programs can be particularly fun and interesting to explore, and we were delighted to find one 1955 ad referencing our library’s namesake.

Advertisement for Spencer Chemical Company and
the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co. in the KU football program,
October 22, 1955. Call Number: RG 66/14/1. Click image to enlarge.

Cover of the KU football program, October 22, 1955.
Call Number: RG 66/14/1. Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 29,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

KU football fans tailgating with the Campanile in the background, 1979/1980.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/66/14 1979/1980 Prints:
Student Activities: Sports: Football (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

Of the ancient professions–law, medicine, and theology–law, with its private language, its proud practitioners, its high fees, and its dependence on procedure and detail, much of which has no obvious meaning to the lay public, has been the easiest target for satire. The rise in frequency and venom of the satire appears to have coincided, at least so far as the English-speaking world is concerned, with the rise in the use of English in the courts. Once the barrier of Latin and Law-French was lowered, the satirist, like the writer of do-it-yourself law manuals, felt qualified to attack this arcane world.

By the early 18th century, satire of the law was such a recognized and accepted genre that John Arbuthnot, physician to Queen Anne, was able to satirize contemporary English politics under the guise of satirizing an extravagant lawsuit. This pamphlet is the second in his series known as the History of John Bull.

Cover of John Arbuthnot’s Law is a bottomless pit, exemplify’d in the case of the Lord Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog, and Lewis Baboon, who spent all they had in a lawsuit. Second edition. London: for John Morphew, 1712. Call number Bond B290.

Beginning of chapter one: The occasion of the law-suit.

A contemporary owner has added notes identifying the parties and concepts involved. The lawyer, “Hocus” (for “Hocus pocus”), is the great general, Marlborough, whose supposed political ambitions–or those of his dangerously capable duchess–were greatly resented.

Chapter two: How Bull and Frog grew jealous that the Lord Strutt intended to give all his custom to his grandfather, Lewis Baboon.

From Civil, Canon, and Common: Aspects of Legal History. An exhibition of books and manuscripts in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, 1996.
Alexandra Mason and James Helyar, editors