Online Exhibits

The Special Collections of the Class of 1945 Library at Phillips Exeter Academy feature works from the 16th to 21st centuries and include such treasures as a Medieval illuminated manuscript and the explorer Roald Amundsen’s 1905 journal detailing his discovery of the Northwest Passage.  More...

In 1958, Albert Lee, class of 1887 and the managing editor at Collier’s Weekly, gave the Academy Library a truly wonderful gift — the handwritten journal of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Written by Amundsen soon after his discovery of the Northwest Passage (the long sought after sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans) and sent directly to Collier's for publication, the journal is as profound as it is unique.  More...

In addition to the materials on the fourth floor, the Class of 1945 Library's Special Collections include a number of portraits of famous authors, many of which are framed with handwritten letters (or in one case a poem) by the author.  These are hung throughout the library for all to see, and are another way in which the library seeks to be (in the words of Robert N. Shapiro '68) "a focus of the community...where one may linger and ponder."  More...

The Exeter Remembered exhibit was originally created in 1980 with funding from the N.H. Council for the Humanities, to acquaint the citizens of Exeter and New Hampshire with the way we were at the turn of the century. The prints gathered together in this exhibition represent the best of over four thousand glass plate negatives. These fragile images, the personal work of Albert C. Buzell, Edwin L. Cunningham and his son Edward W. Cunningham, constitute an invaluable social documentary.  More...