The Alphabet Zoo

By Megan Drennan

The Beinecke Library at Yale University resembles a gleaming white mausoleum on stilts. Its marble-paneled walls straddle four granite pyramids, an architectural non sequitur on this campus of ivy, brick, and stone. In a sense, this horizontal box is a final resting place, but for rare books and manuscripts, not past presidents or famous alumni.

Inside the library, muted sunlight passes through the transluscent walls, coloring the large reading room a soft orange. In the center of the library, a glass tower filled with precious books rises six stories to touch the ceiling. Audubon watercolors and a Gutenberg Bible reside permanently in this rare-books room, a tiny sampling of the more than 600,000 volumes housed here.

Beneath this cathedral-like space, tucked away in acid-free folders and carefully numbered boxes, lie more literary treasures, including the personal archive of the famed Harlem Renaissance poet James Mercer Langston Hughes. Over the years, scholars have visited the collection regularly, paying their respects as they glean insights into the...