The Lewis Walpole Library

08/28/2026

The LWL's bear seems to have appointed himself unofficial on-site security guard. Here he is on patrol, making the rounds of the library's grounds.

Thanks to fellow Chloe for this week's video.

08/27/2026

08/27/2026

Calling all new and returning students! We're making it easy to visit the Lewis Walpole Library as part of the Discover Yale Library program with a tour Sept. 11 am.

Depart New Haven at 9 am on a chartered bus to the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington. Tour the LWL, learn about programs and opportunities here, enjoy refreshments, and pick up some of our awesome swag before returning to campus by noon. Bring your passports and get a 🐻 stamp toward winning the grand prize of an individual study room in Bass Library through May 2027.

details https://guides.library.yale.edu/DiscoverYaleLibrary

LWL tour info https://schedule.yale.edu/event/17503927


Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

08/26/2026

Happy

The Lewises never had children, but they had dogs. Lots of them. Cocker spaniels Jason, Samson, Tory, a dachshund named Fred, and standard poodles Tulipe, Pom, Fidèle, Mimi, Tray, and Honey.

"Annie Burr...had been brought up with dogs....Lefty was taught as a boy to dislike dogs, a misfortune, but he must get over it....Lefty became increasingly tolerant of their misdemeanors....His share in the dogs' lives has been limited to talking to them, scratching their ears, and taking them down the garden, but these attentions have won him a place in their regard." (One Man's Education, p. 248).

08/25/2026

"They fed me for many days on ice creams" Horace Mann wrote to Horace Walpole on 8 February 1785.

We can't quite expect many days of , but LWL staff and resident fellows certainly enjoyed today's ice cream social in Farmington.



🍦🍨

08/21/2026

This wandered right across the Root House terrace on Sunday morning! Happy 🐻

08/20/2026

Hooray for !

SYMPOSIUM | HOGARTH: HIS ART, LIFE, AND TIMES. A Tribute to Ronald Paulson

October 14 - 16. Mark your calendars now & make your plans to be in New Haven at the Yale Center for British Art.

Organized by the Lewis Walpole Library in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Library, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, this symposium celebrates the generous gift by Professor Paulson (1930-2024) of his papers together with a legacy endowment to establish a fellowship at the Lewis Walpole Library in memory of his son, Andrew Meredith Paulson.

Speakers will present creative new research in Hogarth studies across multi-disciplinary perspectives. Panel themes will include “Paulson’s Hogarth,” “Drawing,” “Nation and Empire,” and “Social and Political Critique.”

Details on Lewis Walpole Library website and Yale Library Calendar



Yale Center for British Art

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

08/14/2026

We're doing our ecological duty to fight the infestation of the when we see one on the library campus in , Connecticut.

With apologies to Bertie Greatheed and Horace Walpole (https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/11001127)

https://portal.ct.gov/caes/plants-pest-info/spotted-lanternfly?language=en_US

08/14/2026

Happy ! It's high time we featured an amphibian. So here is a toad. Is it an American toad or a Fowler's toad?

Are there any specialists among you who can help identify it?

Credit to Cindy who first spotted the toad in the grass.

08/13/2026

We were saddened today to learn of the passing of Tone Sundt Urstad, a scholar from the University of Oslo whose work on Sir Charles Hanbury Williams brought her back to the Lewis Walpole Library many times, including on a fellowship in 2004-2005.

Her dissertation from University of Cambridge is cited as a source for information in the Charles Hanbury Williams entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and is referred to in the Collection Overview section of the finding aid to the Charles Hanbury Williams Papers at the Lewis Walpole Library. (See https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/8/resources/13134). We would note that Tone worked extensively with the collection well before there was a published finding aid available.

Her husband Hans Ola Urstad reports that her biography of Hanbury Williams will be published by a university press.

We will be sorry not to be able to welcome Tone to Farmington again, but we will remember her with fondness. Her legacy will live on in the forthcoming book and with the Norway Spruce which she gave to the library years ago and which reminds us of her kind and generous presence.

https://www.avisenagder.no/tone-dagny-sundt-urstad-til-minne/o/5-99-1536867