The John Rylands Library

The John Rylands Library stands out because of its dark, jagged sandstone towers that mimic a gothic cathedral rather than a typical scholarly building. Enriqueta Rylands commissioned the library in eighteen eighty-nine to honor her late husband, a wealthy textile magnate. She spent years scouring Europe for rare books, manuscripts, and incunabula to fill the shelves. When it opened in nineteen hundred, the building contained one of the most significant collections of early printed books and religious texts in the entire world.