In 1992 the Houghton Library celebrated fifty years of preeminence with an exhibition devoted to its riches. This work catalogs an astonishing range of books, manuscripts, and curiosities: a miniature stage set made for a 1975 Mabou Mines production of Samuel Beckett's play The Lost Ones ; manuscript scores and first editions of works by Faure, Schumann, and Beethoven, among others; pathbreaking prints from the hands of Piranesi and Delacroix; drawings and manuscript items from such figures as Edward Lear, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Ben Shahn; remarkable examples of medieval manuscripts and woodblock printed texts, as well as such primary examples of early letterpress as the Gutenberg Bible. Taken together, these items illustrate how a still-young institution becomes a repository of centuries of culture and memory.