Thank you to all the students and staff that attended DCDE’s annual Halloween event on Tuesday! Each year DCDE opens our deepest darkest vault to unveil our spookiest material as well as bring some levity to your day’s studies in Falvey.

Many treats, from candy to pizza, were available to Halloween revelers to enjoy. In addition, DCDE had wooden block prints created by our DCDE coordinator, Mike Sgier, available for people to take home.

A print demonstration was done at the event and intended to highlight the type of printing done for some of the bibles on display in the our new exhibit, Divine Inspiration: Revealing the Sacred in Biblical Texts and Imagery.

This year was a return of our Haunted Villanova Map with attendees placing stickers on places at Villanova they think are eerie or know of a good ghost story. Alumni Hall, Tolentine Hall, Middleton Hall, and Falvey Library seemed to be the spookiest places on campus lately.

And as we do every year we had on display some of DCDE collections’ spookiest and fantastical items. These items illustrate the discourse around the unexplained in the past or what was considered popular stories of ghosts, monsters, etc.

Always a fan favorite is  hand drawn jack-o-lanterns of Halloween letter from 1925, which demonstrates how Halloween was celebrated in the past.

On display and available to see by appointment in Special Collections:

Irish Witchcraft and Demonology from the McGarrity Collection

Letter, To: “Dear Papa” From: Catherine Meave McGarrity, October 22, 1925 from the McGarrity Collection

Issues from Weird Tales from our Dime Novel Collection

The Amateur’s Guide to Magic and Mystery and the Black Art: Fully Exposed