which are maintained as discrete units. Altogether, Special Collections consists of over 250 separate collections, numbering some 2.5 million items. Notable collections include: Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection – graphics, books and miniature soldiers Brown University Archives – official university records, photographs, university publications, student group records, artifacts, and personal papers Colonel George Earl Church Collection – South American explorer and geographer, 3,500 personal manuscripts and letters, plus books H. P. Lovecraft Collection – personal manuscripts and letters; the library houses the largest collection of Lovecraft materials in the world Henry David Thoreau Collection – books from personal library and journal manuscripts George Orwell Collection – includes the original manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four – Orwell's only surviving literary manuscript Drowne Collection – the personal library of Dr. Solomon Drowne, including an engraving by Paul Revere Lownes Collection – Brown's most extensive science collection, contains a copy of Siderius Nuncius annotated by Galileo himself Other notable items include a Shakespeare First Folio, the first two editions of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (1543, 1566), a copy of Giambattista Vico’s The New Science (1730) annotated by the author, King George III’s copy of Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, a first edition of Leaves of Grass inscribed by Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde (1855), T.S. Eliot's copy of The Great Gatsby (1925), and 27 Mesopotamian clay tablets and cones. Anthropodermic book collection The John Hay Library is well known for its collection of anthropodermic books (books bound in human skin). The Hay acquired the books in the 1960s as gifts from two alumni, at least one an avid book collector. The books were not originally bound in human skin, but were instead rebound for private collectors in the 19th century. The library has four such human-skin books: De Humanis Corporis Fabrica (Andreas Vesalius, 1543) Dance of Death (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1816) Dance of Death (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1898) Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife (Adolphe Belot, 1891) Brown University Archives The University Archives serves as the institutional memory of the university by collecting, preserving, and making accessible the materials that provide evidence of past University actions and contribute to an understanding of the university's structure and its history. For the definitive reference work on the history, people, and places of Brown University, please consult the Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell. The records of the Corporation that governs Brown University are in