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Ah, Valentine’s Day; a celebration of love, passion and devotion. For the occasion, Rare Books and Special Collections is displaying its most fitting materials from several of its eclectic collections.

Items on display include:

From the Sheila R. Bourke Children’s Collection:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The quiver of love: a collection of valentines ancient and modern, with illustrations by Walter Crane, printed in 1876.   

From the William Colgate History of Printing Collection:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The Bridal Souvenir, illuminated by Samuel Stanesby, printed in 1857.

From the Cookbook Collection:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Favourite cocoa and chocolate recipes by Mary Moore, printed for Fry-Cadbury in 1900.

From the AV Archival Collection:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý A cassette recording of a talk given by distinguished erotica writer Anaïs Nin at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ in 1973.

From the Print Collection:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Six Valentine's Day cards that illustrate the harsh realities of love by Montreal Star cartoonist Arthur George Racey, printed in 1924.

Also are display are:

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý A 1765 Eustache Le Noble matrimonial map.

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Several uncatalogued Victorian era greeting cards. Rare Books has a very large greeting card collection with hundreds, if not thousands of cards from the 19th and 20th centuries.

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Six early Harlequin novels. Rare Books has a collection of 655 Harlequin paperbacks. Not many people know that they started out with mysteries before romance and that they are Canadian.

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Illustrations of the human heart found in 17th and 18th century books from the Osler Library of the History of Medicine.

•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Wedding photos from the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Archives, featuring Birks Chapel.