It’s “Procedure for Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong in Dots,” written by Louis Braille, the creator of braille, when he was just 20 years old. Only six copies are known to exist, and one of those recently sold for $95,000.
But price is not what makes the book so special.
This is the book that introduced braille to the world. In doing so, it launched an easy-to-use tactile alphabet that brought the power of literacy to generations of people who are blind. Braille also made the world more accessible, with the six-dot system eventually appearing on everything from menus to ATM keypads.
How “Procedure for Writing…” came to Perkins is a bit of a mystery, but Perkins Archivist Jen Hale thinks it may be possible Perkins’ first director, Samuel Gridley Howe, acquired it in Europe after the school’s founder, Dr. John Dix Fischer, sent him there to research blindness education.
“We’re just incredibly lucky to have it,” she said. “It’s a rare, special book.”