City: Cincinnati, OH

Category: Education

Telephone: (513) 721-3707

Address: 917 Plum Street

Description: The works of John Uri Lloyd, a prominent Cincinnati pharmacist and author, are housed here. Lloyd wrote hundreds of articles for medical and scientific journals on the chemical properties of plants and books on pharmacology. More than 50 years after his death, the library is still a major center for scholars researching the history of pharmacology.Lloyd also wrote in 1895 one of the world’s first science fiction/fantasy novels, Etidorhpa (that’s Aphrodite spelled backward), in which the protagonist is kidnapped and taken into the center of the earth, where he is guided through bizarre crystal forests by an eyeless humanoid. It was one of the more offbeat things ever to come out of Cincinnati and made a few folks wonder if Mr. Lloyd was sampling what he studied. But the book became a cult classic and has remained popular. An endowment from Lloyd’s family keeps his legacy alive in this library, which is open to the public for research.