I was being handed a rectangular package, wrapped in striped paper. Unwrapping one short end and looking inside, I saw the soothing, folded pages of a book, outlined in an old-fashioned black cover. "What a nice binding," I said. As I continued unwrapping the package, I withdrew the book and looked on its thick black side, where "The Tyranny of Words" was printed in gold. It became very clear at that moment that I was holding something special, but I still didn't know what it was. The inside cover showed a bookplate from Harvard, rebelliously stamped "WITHDRAWN from the Psychological Studies Collection." There was some delicate handwriting from 1938 and then a cryptic little inscription from Rosa Nilpferd. So I flipped through the few blank pages in the beginning to find out what this book was all about. Then there were a few more blank pages....ummm, wait, there certainly are a lot of them - ALL of the pages are blank! These words really were tyrannical - they retired to their Spring Palace and left the peasants empty handed! But what nice paper they left behind, complete with an elegant watermark...wait, what is going on? Was this book really a part of the Psychological Studies Collection at Harvard?

Come to find out that I was holding something very rare, indeed - the FIRST hand-bound book created cleverly by the artist Rosa Nilpferd, given to me as a journal, "The Tyranny of Words!"

Here's a little something for Rosa: