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Before publishing The Ambassadors serially in The North American Review, Henry James submitted a summary of the novel to Harper & Brothers. This typed outline of The Ambassadors is the only surviving outline of any of James's novels (James burned many of his papers). In 90 typed pages James discusses how he got the idea for the novel, describes his characters, and lays out the novel's plot and themes. The first page and the last page of the outline are shown below – both are signed by James, and the final page is dated Sept. 1, 1900.

Edward Lear, British landscape painter and writer, wrote many limericks and "nonsenses" (as he called them) for children. One of his most famous nonsense poems is "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," shown here in his hand.

Lear ends this copy of his humorous poem with a note that he "meant to have illustrated it, but there ain't time."

Although The Morgan does not have Lear's illustration of his poem, we do have a sketch of the poem by Beatrix Potter. In an 1897 letter to a young boy named Noel Moore, Potter draws him a "picture of the owl and the pussy cat after they were married."

Food could account for as much as fifty percent of an 18th-century English household's budget, and this cookbook from around 1784 provides over 100 recipes (or "receipts" as they were known) for common English dishes.

Leonhard Euler was perhaps the foremost mathematician of the 18th century. He made major contributions to the fields of calculus, mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, and astronomy. Born in Switzerland, he spent much of his life in Berlin and St. Petersburg. The Morgan holds a series of 99 letters he wrote to his colleague, the French mathematician Pierre Maupertuis, while they were both part of the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great. In this letter, dated July 4, 1744, Euler is working on a problem in spherical geometry.

Ever moved your sheeprack on Sunday morning?

Now, it might not be a big deal. But if you were caught doing this in the 1500s, you could end up in an English church court.

The Morgan’s collection of 16th-century penances records the sentences imposed by such a court. From these documents, we learn that Henrie Barker was

Imagine having a father who was friends with Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and other famous authors of the 19th century. Henry Bradbury, the son of William Bradbury (of the Victorian publisher Bradbury and Evans), used his father's connections to compile a scrapbook of letters, sketches, drawings, prints, photographs, and printed ephemera. Much of the material is related to Punch, the Victorian periodical printed and later purchased by Bradbury and Evans.

John Keats died with £800 in chancery, due to him from an inheritance. He knew nothing of this though, and was effectively penniless while he was dying of consumption. In a final attempt to recover his health, he set sail for Italy in the fall of 1820 with his close friend Joseph Severn. A month before his departure, he acknowledged the futility of this journey in a short letter to his publisher and friend John Taylor and noted that the upcoming trip "wakes me at daylight every morning and haunts me horribly."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
Autograph letter signed, dated London [1847], to Leigh Hunt
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008
MA 7244

(American, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1935)
The Glyptotek Drawings, 1987–88.
Charcoal on Mylar. 17 3/4 x 15 1/2 inches (45 x 39.4 cm)
Promised gift of the artist to The Morgan Library & Museum.

Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Autograph letter signed, dated Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, 25 August 1926, to Conrad Aiken
Purchased on the John F. Fleming Fund, 2008
MA 7261

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
Autograph letter signed, dated London, 29 March 1750, to Frances Grainger
Purchased on the Fellows Endowment Fund, 2008
MA 7251

Giacomo Torelli (1608–1678). Scene e machine preparate alle Nozze di Teti, Balletto Reale [Paris: s.n., 1654]. Bound with: Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652). Feste theatrali per la finta pazza[Paris: s.n., 1645]. PML 195035. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008.

Sebastian Münster (1489–1552). Organum uranicum. Basle: Heinrich Petri, 1536; bound with Venerable Bede (673–735), Opuscula cumplura de temporum ratione. Cologne: Printed by Johannel Prael for Peter Quentel, 1537. PML 195039. Purchased as the gift of Rudy L. Ruggles, Jr., and on the Lathrop C. Harper Fund, 2008.

French & Latin. Horae ad usum Romanum. [Paris: Jean Du Pré or Chablis: Jean Le Rouge] for Antoine Vérard, 2 Sept. 1485. PML 129974; ChL1447C. Purchased as the gift of the B. H. Breslauer Foundation and on the B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund, the Curt F. Bühler Fund, the Lathrop C. Harper Fund, and the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2007.

Francisco de Vargas Mejia (1484–1560). Lettres et memoires de François de Vargas, de Pierre de Malvenda, et de quelques evêques d'Espagne touchant le concile de Trente.Translated and edited by Michel Le Vassor. Amsterdam: Chez Pierre Brunel, 1699. PML 195033. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens ["Mark Twain"] (1835–1910)
Autograph letter signed, Dublin, New Hampshire, to Mrs. Benjamin, August 29, 1906
3 pages, with a separate 1-page note describing a series of seven silver gelatin print portrait photographs
Purchased on the John F. Fleming Fund
MA 7252 and MA 7253

(American, born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1941)
Untitled (Study for Diamond Mind II), 1975
Graphite on paper
30 5/8 x 39 7/8 inches (778 x 1013 mm)
Inscription: Diamond Mind/Circle of Tears/Fallen All Around me/Fallen Mind/Mindless Tears/Cut like a Diamond/Layout -/12 pc. stone 7 1/2º Rhomboids/Granite 15" on a side.
Gift of the Modern and Contemporary Collectors' Committee; 2008.10

(American, born in Denver, Colorado, 1960)
Untitled, 2007
Colored pencil on paper
30 1/4 x 22 3/4 inches (768 x 578 mm)
Purchased as the gift of Whitney B. Armstrong and on the Young Associates Fund for Twentieth-Century Acquisitions; 2008.40

(Italian, Codemondo near Reggio Emilia 1550–1578 Rome)
The Apparition of the Angel to St. Joseph, ca. 1576
Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over red chalk
15 x 11 1/8 inches (381 x 282 mm)
Inscribed at lower left, in pen and brown ink, Zuchero.
Purchased in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr.'s tenure as director by the Visiting Committee to the Department of Drawings and Prints through the generosity of Ildiko Butler, Diane A. Nixon, Andrea Woodner, Hamilton Robinson, Jr., Joan Taub Ades, Clement C. Moore II, Jayne Wrightsman, David M. Tobey, Eugene V. Thaw, George L.K. Frelinghuysen, Seymour and Helen Mae Askin, Catherine G. Curran, Melvin R. Seiden, Hubert and Mireille Goldschmidt, and Wheelock Whitney III; 2007.80

Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre
(French, Paris 1714–1789 Paris)
Le Misanthrope
Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue paper
8 3/4 x 11 inches (220 x 280 mm)