Humanities

The Humanities division at the Dallas Public Library offers access to information related to literature, language, religion, and philosophy. The collection of books, videos, DVDs, CDs, and audiocassettes includes literary works, literary criticism, biographies, language materials, and works in foreign languages. Among the subjects included in the Humanities collection are:

• Generalities
• Almanacs, Encyclopedias, Newspapers, Reference Materials; Journalism, Library Science
• Philosophy
• Logic, Ethics
• Religion and Mythology
• Biblical Literature, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, comparative religion, and other world religions; Greek, Roman, and other mythologies; astrology, dreams, UFOs, and other paranormal phenomena
• Language and Grammar
• Dictionaries, Grammars, Study Guides, and Phrase Books in most world languages; ESL and sign language
• Literature
• Plays, Poetry, Writing, Literary Criticism
  
• Fiction

Newspapers

The Humanities division at the Dallas Public Library maintains a collection of newspapers from around the country.  For more information, please visit our Current Newspaper Holdings.

Humanities Internet Links

For online information about book awards, bestsellers, language, literacy, literary criticism, literature, philosophy, poetry, current news and general reference, please visit our Humanities Internet Links.  This collection of online resources provides helpful links to humanities-related websites.

Internet Resources for Preserving and Evaluating Collectible Books

For online information about evaluating collectible books, please visit the Internet Resources for Evaluating and Preserving Collectible Books.

Sources for Actors

Actors will find useful information about Monologues, Scenebooks, and Dialect Instruction tools available through the Dallas Public Library within the Sources for Actors pathfinder.

Frances Sanger Mossiker Writers Study Room

The Frances Sanger Mossiker Writers Study Room is an enclosed space in the Humanities Division on the third floor of the Central Library. The Room offers writers a place to work closer to the library's collections and professional staff. The Room contains four lockable desks, a conference table, a telephone, and space for several hundred books.

Frances Sanger Mossiker was born in Dallas in 1906. She attended The Hockaday School and went on to study French and Romance languages at Smith College, Barnard College, and Sorbonne. Mrs. Mossiker began reviewing books for a local Dallas radio station in 1933. Her first book, The Queen's Necklace, a tale of 18th-century France, was published in 1961. Five others followed: Napoleon and Josephine, in 1964; The Affair of the Poisons, a story of Louis IV, in 1969; More Than a Queen: The Life of Josephine Bonaparte, in 1971; Pocahontas: The Life and Legend, in 1976; and Madame De Sevigne: A Life and Letters, in 1983. The New York Times said upon her death on May 9, 1985, "She wrote in a way that combined painstaking attention to detail with a lively style that made her a best-selling author on both sides of the Atlantic."

In his memorial tribute to Mrs. Mossiker, Dallas historian A. C. Greene remarked that although Frances Mossiker "was as at home in New York, Paris, and London as in Dallas . . . she never for one day turned her back on her native city." Her gift of the Writers Study Room to Dallas authors attests to her continued interest in our city's cultural life. Until her last illness she was always eager to know about the occupants of the Room and their writing projects.

The Dallas Public Library is proud to be the custodian of Mrs. Mossiker's papers and literary memorabilia. Some of these materials are permanently on display in the Writers Study Room. We hope they will serve as a reminder of the debt of gratitude the citizens of Dallas -- especially the writers -- owe to Frances Sanger Mossiker.

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