Category Archives: Acquisitions

This Just In: Summer Beach Reading Edition

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The following miscellany of recent book acquisitions is intended, not for those basking and basting on a sandy beach, but for those who prefer the cool, calm, and comfortable surroundings of the Special Collections reading room under Grounds. Take a break from tanning and pay us a summer visit!

Plate 13 in William M. Woollett, Old homes made new: being a collection of plans ... illustrating the alteration and remodelling of several suburban residences (New York: A. J. Bicknell & Co., 1878).

Plate 13 in William M. Woollett, Old homes made new: being a collection of plans … illustrating the alteration and remodelling of several suburban residences (New York: A. J. Bicknell & Co., 1878).

A new addition to our extensive architecture holdings reminds us that architecture can be a process of renovation as well as creation. In Old homes made new (New York: A. J. Bicknell, 1878), Albany, N.Y. architect William M. Woollett offers remodeling advice to American homeowners.  Stuck with a New England saltbox, Federal mansion, Greek Revival temple, or Gothic Revival embarrassment?  Through before-and-after floor plans and exterior views, Woollett shows how to update one’s ancestral family home to the then-fashionable Queen Anne style. The work closes with exterior photographs of a mid-18th-century home in Ridgefield, Conn. that Woollett had transformed into a Victorian showpiece. Architectural historians, historic preservationists, and others charged with reverse-engineering historic structures may find Woollett’s approach illuminating.

When money is THE object: one way to select a spouse in the Antebellum South, as explicated in S. S. Hall, The bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife. (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858)

When money is THE object: one way to select a spouse in the Antebellum South, as explicated in S. S. Hall, The bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife. (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858)

But the nest must be built before it can be renovated. Populating that nest is the subject of S. S. Hall’s rare and unusual Bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858). In some respects similar to the many courtship guides published in Antebellum America, Hall’s work is in other ways different in claiming to be written for a Southern audience. A New Orleans attorney (and not the prolific dime novel writer “Buckskin Sam” Hall, as often claimed), Hall based this work on three years’ “personal experience and general observation.” After offering advice such as “Marry no woman who sleeps till breakfast,” Hall devotes most of the book to the art of marrying well, and well-to-do. At the end is a 15-page appendix of nearly 400 wealthy “unmarried young ladies and gentlemen”—the former identified only by initials, the latter by full name—residing in various Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky towns, with their estimated net worth. One wonders how successfully Hall followed his own advice.

Title page to Wänskaps och handels tractat emellan Hans Maj:t konungen af Swerige och the Förente staterne i Norra America … = Traité d'amitié et de commerce entre Sa Majesté le roi de Suède et les Etats-unis de l'Amérique septentrionale … (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1785)

Title page to Wänskaps och handels tractat emellan Hans Maj:t konungen af Swerige och the Förente staterne i Norra America … = Traité d’amitié et de commerce entre Sa Majesté le roi de Suède et les Etats-unis de l’Amérique septentrionale … (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1785)

To the McGregor Library of American History we have added the rare Swedish printing (Stockholm, 1785) of the landmark 1783 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Sweden and the United States. In September 1782, with the American Revolution drawing to a close, Congress empowered John Adams, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Benjamin Franklin to negotiate peace with Britain. At the same time Franklin was appointed minister to Sweden, and he quickly entered into discussions with his Swedish counterpart. A treaty was concluded on April 3, 1783, and ratified by both countries later that year. Sweden thus became the first neutral country to officially recognize the United States. The treaty’s text is printed in parallel columns in Swedish and French, with Congress’s act of ratification appended in English.

A detail from one of the massive (53 x 36 cm.) engraved plates in André François Roland, Le grand art d’ecrire. (Paris: Chez Esnauts et Rapilly, [between 1777 and 1791]

A detail from one of the massive (53 x 36 cm.) engraved plates in André François Roland, Le grand art d’ecrire. (Paris: Chez Esnauts et Rapilly, [between 1777 and 1791]

Summer is no time to dredge up dreary memories of primary school penmanship class, but we can’t resist pointing out that the history of handwriting and calligraphy are strongly represented in Special Collections. At a recent auction we were able to acquire several very rare 18th-century French, Italian, and German penmanship manuals, thereby adding significant depth to our holdings. Penmanship instruction was long the province of writing masters, some of whom published manuals for their students’ use. Typically these consisted of engraved plates reproducing examples of the master’s penmanship. Some plates would demonstrate how to hold the quill pen and execute the basic strokes, others would illustrate the various hands, and still others would advertise the master’s expertise, particularly his command of hand in which texts and even elaborate images were drawn without once lifting the pen from paper. These writing books were often published on demand, with students customizing their copies by selecting from among the available engraved plates, hence copies are rare and tend to vary in content. Shown here is a detail from Le grande art d’ecrire, which features the work of André François Roland, a Parisian writing master active in the mid-18th century. The U.Va. copy, in its original blue paper wrappers, contains 31 plates and was issued sometime between 1777 and 1791. Other copies are known issued as early as 1758. This work is extremely unusual for its large format, with plates measuring 53 x 36 cm.

[Harvey Newcomb], The "Negro pew": being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837)

[Harvey Newcomb], The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837)

Another spring auction added several anti-slavery and abolitionist works to Special Collections, including a fine copy in its original publisher’s binding with printed cover label of Harvey Newcomb’s The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. Published in Boston in 1837, Newcomb’s book advanced the abolitionist movement a step further by confronting Northern prejudice against African Americans. Taking as his starting point the common practice of restricting where blacks could sit in church, Newcomb marshals many arguments to support his thesis “that every man is entitled to be esteemed and treated according to his social, moral, and intellectual worth.”

P. T. Barnum (er, Petite Bunkum) and General Tom Thumb make the acquaintance of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman. (New york: P. F. Harris, 1855)

P. T. Barnum (er, Petite Bunkum) and General Tom Thumb make the acquaintance of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman. (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855)

The great American showman P. T. Barnum makes innumerable cameo appearances under Grounds in Special Collections’ rich holdings relating to 19th-century American literature and culture, hence we were happy to acquire a rare Barnum parody. In 1855, just before financial reversals added further notoriety to his name, Barnum published a best-selling autobiography “written by himself.” The book was quickly and affectionately parodied in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855), also (and anonymously) “written by himself.” “In these pages I have adhered to the truth as closely as might suit my purpose,” Bunkum allows, before relating his comical rise to fame and fortune. Of the supporting characters, only General Tom Thumb retains his full name. Others receive a modest fig leaf—Joyce Heath (for Joyce Heth, billed as George Washington’s 160-year-old nurse), Jenny [Lind] the Swedish Nightingale, the Fudge Mermaid, the Whiskered Woman—and all are caricatured in image as well as in word.

It’s 5 p.m. and we must close for the day, but perhaps there’s still time for the beach?

This Just In: Rolling in the Stacks with the Charlottesville Derby Dames

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This week, we feature a guest post from Charlottesville Derby Dame Grëtel vön Metäl, also known as Gretchen Gueguen.

When we here at the Small Library think about new materials we would like to add to our collections we take many factors into consideration: the research quality of the content, connections to the University’s curriculum or history, or alignment with our core collecting areas. Given the breadth of subject, time period, and format of our collections we often come across materials that will complement or counterpoint something we already own, even though at first glance it might not seem to fit with everything else.

Such is the story of how we made our newest acquisition, the Charlottesville Derby Dames Records. The Dames are a non-profit women’s sport club here in Charlottesville founded in 2007. My day-job at the library is Digital Archivist, but on the flat-track I am known as “Grëtel vön Metäl.” When I mentioned one day that I was going to be skating with the Dames in an upcoming match (called a “bout” in derby parlance), our current Head of Technical Services, Edward Gaynor, immediately suggested that a collection of Dames materials would make an excellent complement to our collections of the papers of various local and regional “ladies’ clubs” such as The Garden Club or the Ladies’ Sewing Society. When researchers come to the Reading Room to look at these collections they are usually studying the ways in which women construct their identities in public: how do they present themselves? what kinds of activities do they become involved in? what can these things tell us about women’s roles?

A screenshot of the Dames’ website, ca. 2012 (MSS MSS 15490). Compare with the Team’s current page: http://www.charlottesvillederbydames.com.

A screenshot of the Dames’ website, ca. 2012 (MSS 15490). Compare with the Team’s current page: http://www.charlottesvillederbydames.com.

The sport of roller derby began in the late 1800s as endurance skating races. They were a popular activity for both sexes until entrepreneurs Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon formed professional leagues featuring women in the 1930s and added elements of competition and physical contact. The sport was immensely popular, a staple of television, until the 70s. While the fights were often staged, the women skaters were skilled athletes.

Roller derby in the fifties was pretty rough and tumble, but with no protective gear (image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c13476/)

Roller derby in the fifties was pretty rough and tumble, but skaters wore no protective gear (image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c13476/)

Roller derby began its resurgence in the early 2000s in Austin, Texas. Doing away with the traditional banked track and playing on a flat oval made it easier to find a place to skate – anywhere you can find a big flat space, you can play roller derby (although a few leagues still use a banked track). The game quickly spread across the country and even across the globe. By 2013 over 1,200 leagues had formed on every continent but Antarctica, and men’s, junior’s, and co-ed leagues are growing in numbers as well.

Derby has a growing fan-base, and an even more passionate following among those who play it. Women’s roller derby is especially known for the colorful personas adopted by players, symbolized by their adopted “Derby Names.” The sport itself requires a high degree of athleticism combining strength, endurance, skill, and strategy, but on the flat track skaters can be as menacing (Soulfearic Acid), tough (Punky Bruiser), flirty (Sexy Sladie), or playful (Snot Rocket Science) as they want to be.

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Today the Dames play with helmets, knee and elbow pads and wrist guards. This photo is from a bout in 2012 at Charlottesville’s Main Street Arena against the Charm City Rollergirls of Baltimore, Maryland (MSS 15490. photo by Dan Purdy).

The newly acquired Derby Dames collection here at UVa is unusual in more than just its subject. It was also a chance for us to acquire a modern collection composed almost entirely of electronic materials. As the Dames have only just recently formed, all of our operational documents, promotional material, and ephemera are created as electronic documents and most are never printed. While the library has collected about 30 posters, handbills, programs, and other ephemera, we’ve also collected more than 12,000 electronic documents including bylaws and policies, meeting minutes, graphics, photos, video, and websites.

I worked with the Dames to download a copy of all of the team’s working files from a shared Google Documents folder. These files were immediately copied for safe keeping and stored on an external hard drive. Next, I used specialized software to create listings of all of the files present and some technical details of each. A key piece of information is what’s called a “checksum” – a kind of digital fingerprint in the form of a numerical code created by running an algorithm on the contents of a file. That file and only that particular file will create that particular checksum. This allows me to verify that files haven’t been corrupted or tampered with over time.

After organizing and removing duplicates from the collection, I uploaded the new collection to networked library storage and created a finding aid. Future work will include creating a searchable, online archive of the documents (access will be available on Grounds in the Reading Room initially) and working with the Library IT department to ensure the long-term preservation of the content within the Library and University’s larger IT infrastructure. This work will not only ensure the future access to the Derby Dames collection, but will pave the way for more electronic collections to come.

This Just In: A Happy Reunion!

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Here at U.Va. Thomas Jefferson looms large both on, and under, Grounds.  It is only fitting that the Small Special Collections Library holds one of the world’s best collections of Jefferson manuscripts.  Some form part of the U.Va. Archives, for Jefferson founded the university and served as its first Rector from 1816 until his death in 1826.  Others have been placed in our care by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello.  Still more have been acquired over the years through the generosity of many donors, who have either entrusted their Jefferson manuscripts to us or given funds for new acquisitions.

Jefferson is estimated to have written some 19,000 letters during his lifetime.  A great many survive, and a significant number of Jefferson letters and documents remain in private hands.  Given our finite resources, Special Collections can by no means acquire every Jefferson manuscript that comes on the market.  Instead we patiently seek items of high research value, especially the previously unknown and unpublished.  Our latest Jefferson acquisition arrived just last week, and it fits the bill perfectly: an early and highly significant manuscript, previously unknown and unpublished, which is the mate of a manuscript already at U.Va.

Our newly acquired Thomas Jefferson manuscript: the bottom half of a leaf containing his draft revision (ca. November 1769) of the rules under which the Virginia House of Burgesses conducted its business. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

But the story begins in 1988, when Special Collections learned of an unrecorded Jefferson manuscript being offered in an upstate New York auction.  The document, for which we were high bidder, was identified by editors at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson as the top half of a leaf, written on both sides, containing Jefferson’s draft revision of the rules by which Virginia’s House of Burgesses conducted its business.  Jefferson began his political career in 1769 when, at the age of 26, he took a seat in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg.  In November of that year he was appointed to a committee chaired by Edmund Pendleton, who assigned Jefferson the task of drafting new rules for the House.  Jefferson’s draft was refined in committee before being approved by the House of Burgesses on December 8, 1769.  These rules guided its deliberations in the crucial years leading up to the American Revolution.

In 1997 U.Va.’s incomplete manuscript was published in volume 27 of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, where it was described as Jefferson’s “earliest surviving documentary contribution as a public official to promoting the orderly conduct of legislative business, a subject of enduring interest that culminated during his vice-presidency with the publication in 1801 of his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which still helps to guide parliamentary procedure in the United States Congress today.”  In some respects it also prefigures Jefferson’s later committee assignment, in June of 1776, to draft another key document: the Declaration of Independence.

Proof that the document’s top and bottom halves were once joined: from left to right, note how the dot of the i and ascenders of the letters h, h and b align perfectly across the divide. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

Last month, on the opening night of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, I was called over to a dealer’s booth, where a modest scrap of paper was placed in my hands.  It was none other than the missing bottom half of Jefferson’s 1769 draft!  Negotiations were quickly concluded, and last week the two halves were happily, and permanently, reunited.  Once the newly acquired manuscript is fully studied and published, we will know far more about this key episode in Jefferson’s nascent political career and the development of his political thinking.

Reunited at last! The top half is cataloged as MSS 10803; the newly acquired bottom half is presently being accessioned. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

Coincidentally, an exhibition of some of our best Jefferson manuscripts is on view under Grounds through June 8.  Curated in cooperation with Monticello staff, “Thomas Jefferson Revealed” briefly surveys Jefferson’s pre-presidential years and his life at Monticello.  Highlights include a ledger recording Jefferson’s Williamsburg book purchases from 1764-1766; his annotated copy of the London, 1787 edition of Notes on the State of Virginia; a lock of Jefferson’s hair taken on his deathbed, and a letter describing his last hours; and the manuscript autobiography of Isaac Jefferson, a Monticello slave.

This Just In: Horsing Around!

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From time to time the Small Special Collections Library receives a transformative gift that reshapes its collections and collecting in unexpected, unusual, and ultimately very beneficial ways.  One such gift was the 1985 bequest of the Marion duPont Scott Sporting Collection.  A direct descendant of E. I. du Pont de Nemours (founder of the eponymous chemical company), Marion duPont Scott (1894-1983) was an internationally renowned horse breeder and equestrian who lived for many years at Montpelier—once the home of president James Madison—some 25 miles northeast of Charlottesville.  She also formed a major collection of sporting literature—especially books, manuscripts, and periodicals relating to horses and horse-racing (though sports such as fishing, hunting, even cockfighting, are also represented)—that was entrusted to the U.Va. Library.  Accompanying the 1,200-item gift was a generous acquisitions endowment that has so far enabled us to more than double the collection’s size.

Frontispiece to part 2 of Cesare Fiaschi, Trattato dell’imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna, 1556)

How does one build such a collection in ways that not only honor the donor’s wishes but enhance its value to U.Va. and the international research community?  The challenge has been an exciting one, for sporting and horses are subjects that permit us to forge stronger connections between the Scott Collection and our other diverse holdings.  Here are a few examples drawn from many recent Scott Collection acquisitions.

Woodcut illustration from Cesare Fiaschi, Trattato dell’imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna, 1556)

We were able to obtain at auction a fine first-edition copy of a classic sixteenth-century work on horsemanship: Cesare Fiaschi’s Trattato dell’imbrigliare, attegiare, & ferrare cavalla, published in Bologna in 1556.  This book now takes pride of place as the earliest work in the Scott Collection.  Master of a famed riding academy founded in Ferrara in 1534, Fiaschi distilled in his book a lifetime’s knowledge concerning the training, equipping, and shoeing of horses.  The work is also a notable example of early Italian book illustration, filled with dozens of woodcuts depicting bits, bridles, and horseshoes. Of particular note are the unusual diagrams mixing horse, rider, and music, which accompany Fiaschi’s famous explication of why tempo and rhythm are crucial to expert riding.

Engraved plate from Johann Elias Ridinger, Verstellung und Beschreibung derer Schul und Campagne Pferden nach ihren Lectionen (Augsburg, 1760)

Another classic equestrian manual, published two centuries later, is Johann Elias Ridinger’s Verstellung und Beschreibung derer Schul und Campagne Pferden nach ihren Lectionen (Augsburg, 1760).  A noted German engraver, Ridinger (1698-1767) was renowned for his depictions of animals, especially horses.  For this rare self-published work Ridinger prepared sixty finely engraved plates to illustrate the bilingual German and French text.  As was typical of the time, Ridinger’s manual concentrates on riding maneuvers useful for a cavalry officer.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some of the finest color-plate books ever created were published in England.  These works, which embraced a wide range of subjects, typically were illustrated with hand-colored aquatint plates.  One of the most popular English illustrators working in the genre was Henry Thomas Alken (1785-1851), who combined a gift for caricature and love of sporting to illustrate many notable works on horse racing, fox-hunting, and other sports.  The Scott Collection contains copies of nearly half of Alken’s sporting books, many of which are quite rare, and we are actively pursuing the remainder.

A one-foot section from Henry Alken’s panorama, A trip to Melton Mowbray (London, 1822), which is 26 feet in length.

Our latest Alken acquisition is his delightful A trip to Melton Mowbray, published in 1822.  This 26-foot-long panorama consists of 14 hand-colored aquatint plates pasted together end-to-end and was originally issued wound around a wooden spindle.  In our copy the plates have been separated and mounted in an album for easier viewing.  The Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray, known for its pork pies and Stilton cheese, has for centuries also been famous as a fox-hunting mecca.  In this work Alken imagines first the comic misadventures of a sporting party journeying from London to Melton Mowbray, and then its participation in the hunt.

One of two newly acquired pencil drawings by Henry Alken for his book, Ideas, accidental and incidental to hunting (London, ca. 1826)

As fine as they are, the color-plate works cannot do proper justice to Alken’s artistry, for something is inevitably lost in the process of translating his exquisite line drawings into the tonal process of aquatint.  Hence we were delighted to acquire two original Alken pencil drawings made for another sporting book: Ideas, accidental and incidental to hunting and other sports (ca. 1826).  By placing the drawings side-by-side with Alken’s books, we can teach in the most effective way possible both Alken’s remarkable artistry and the manner in which etchers translated his work to aquatint plates.

Advertisement for Sloan’s ointment in The complete farrier, or, Horse doctor (Chicago, 1848)

The Scott Collection is also strong in ancillary literature concerning horses.  Here we are less interested in collecting comprehensively than in acquiring the particularly rare, significant, and out-of-the ordinary works that add distinction to a major research holding.  In the area of veterinary medicine, for instance, we snapped up the second known copy of an early Chicago imprint: The complete farrier, or horse doctor, published by W. B. Sloan in 1848.  Sloan was a Chicago purveyor of patent medicines, and the primary objective of this veterinary handbook was to advertise his horse ointment (“The best horse medicine in the world!”) and related products to upper Midwest horse owners.

Frontispiece and title page to The wonders of the horse (New York, 1836)

Literature featuring horses and equestrian sports also figures prominently in the Scott Collection.  An unusual acquisition in this area is The wonders of the horse, recorded in anecdotes, and interspersed with poetry (New York, 1836).  Written for a juvenile audience and first published in London in 1808, this illustrated work anthologizes short extracts about horses from contemporary literature and periodicals.  This fine copy is resplendent in its original publisher’s binding of dark green ribbon-embossed cloth with a red glazed paper label printed in gold pasted to the front cover.

Horse breeders take pedigree as seriously as humans take genealogy, and we have taken advantage of an unusual opportunity to acquire several hundred late nineteenth-century catalogs issued by American horse farms and auction firms.  Today these catalogs are extremely rare, especially in such a concentrated holding, yet they are essential sources for tracing race horse  pedigrees.  These join other catalogs and several complementary manuscript collections previously acquired for the Scott Collection that document the history of the American horse breeding industry.  We have also added a variety of early trade catalogs featuring products suitable for raising and racing horses, such as an 1890 color-illustrated booklet featuring blankets for the well-dressed horse.  These provide a wonderful complement to the extensive and diverse collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century trade catalogs recently given to us by Albert Small.

An opening from Jesse Haney’s Art of training animals (New York, 1869)

Other items in the Scott Collection document the roles horses have played in providing entertainment in circuses, exhibitions, and touring shows.  Equestrian and other animal acts have long been circus staples, and they became even more popular in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the touring circus.  Haney’s art of training animals (New York, 1869) was one of the first general handbooks in the field.  It begins with a long section on training horses to perform various tricks and to “act” in horse dramas, followed by another long section on training dogs. Other chapters concern elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, pigs, rats and mice, seals, and birds, though we are told that “cats do not appear to be favorite subjects of the trainer’s art.”  Another new acquisition is a profusely illustrated “autobiography” of famed circus horse Princess Trixie, the “Queen of all educated horses.”  This pamphlet was sold on the road, wherever Princess Trixie was engaged to perform.

Keepsake pamphlet (ca. 1905) sold at performances by Princess Trixie, “Queen of all educated horses”

 

This Just In: First Cat in Space?

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Now that we have your attention, in this post we feature a miscellany of recent book acquisitions.

An account of two balloon ascensions made in Valencia, Spain on March 12 and 15, 1784. The first was unmanned; the second carried “un gato grande.”  (Photo by David Whitesell)

Before the rise of newspapers, news was often disseminated in the form of inexpensive pamphlets sold in bookshops and hawked on the street.  We recently acquired the second recorded copy of a most unusual relación printed in Valencia, Spain and dated March 24, 1784.  Its unnamed author describes what are perhaps Spain’s earliest balloon ascensions, undertaken only nine months after the Montgolfier brothers first launched their hot air balloon.  The Spanish balloon, constructed primarily of paper and measuring 18 x 12 feet (1103 cubic feet), was smaller than the first Montgolfier balloon.  Its six-panelled blue surface was lavishly decorated with the arms of Valencia and King Carlos III, an inscription from Homer, and other decorations appropriate for a pioneering aerial billboard.  At 5:15 p.m. on March 12, 1784, the balloon ascended from an orchard just outside Valencia’s city wall, soon disappearing into the clouds before landing one league distant from the city.  After some repairs, the balloon was relaunched from the same site on March 15, this time with “una jaula de alambre con un gato grande dentro de ella” (a wire cage with a large cat inside) suspended beneath.  The balloon rose to a height of approximately 3,000 feet, then hovered motionless for ten minutes before making a gentle five-minute descent.  Presumably the cat had much to say upon landing but, because it immediately clawed its way free and fled, its feelings about having been “el primer viajante aëreo de su especie” (the first aeronaut of its species) have been lost to posterity.  We have found reference to a cat being sent aloft in a French balloon exactly one month earlier, on February 15, 1784, but it did not survive the flight, so the Spanish gato may well have been the first successful feline aeronaut.  This relación joins the Small Special Collections Library’s extensive aeronautical history collection.

Original printed front cover to The Philosophy of Kissing, Anatomically and Physiologically Explained. New York: R.H. Elton, 1841. (Photo by David Whitesell)

The second quarter of the 19th century saw a profusion of popular works devoted to courtship and marriage.  Most were issued in a small, portable format and, to make them suitable for gift giving, dressed in attractive bindings.  The Philosophy of Kissing, Anatomically and Physiologically Explained  (New York, 1841), is one of the more unusual.  The book’s perspective is stated up front: “Even Sir Isaac Newton, great philosopher as he doubtless was, kissed, and was kissed, though by no means to a remarkable extent, yet never enquired the WHY–never discovered the WHEREFORE. It was reserved for a later era and a more philosophical age … He ascertained existing phenomena, but found not the cause.”  Perhaps so, but one might well add, tongue in cheek, that Newton fully understood the principle of gravitational attraction.  The book might have been more successful—only one edition was published—if it had focused more on the how than on the why.  This copy retains its original illustrated covers and contains a number of illustrations, including phrenological charts of the brain’s amatory regions.

First page of Specimens of Type in the Journal-Democrat Printing House (Warrensburg, Mo., ca. 1885), showing the smallest text types available in this printing shop. The textual snippets selected for typesetting are fascinating in their own right.  (Photo by David Whitesell)

The Small Special Collections Library boasts a large collection of type specimen books dating back to the 18th century.  These can be either specimens issued by typefoundries, alerting printers to the typefaces, ornaments, and vignettes available for purchase; or specimens issued by printers, showing potential customers what resources were on hand for their book and job printing needs.  Type specimens range in format from simple broadsides to massive, finely printed trade catalogs. Because most soon became outdated and were discarded, today many type specimens are rare.  Although particularly useful to the bibliographer and printing historian, type specimens are valuable sources for investigating the nexus between print and society.  One recent acquisition is the only known copy of a type specimen issued ca. 1885 by a rural Missouri printer: Specimens of Type in the Journal-Democrat Printing House.  The Journal-Democrat was published out of Warrenton, Missouri and, like many newspapers of the time, also printed pamphlets, the occasional book, and especially all manner of jobbing work: blank forms, letterheads, posters, fliers and the like.

Two pages of stock cuts useful for a wide range of job printing.  (Photo by David Whitesell)

This specimen book begins with 18 pages of typefaces in various sizes and decorative styles, most far more suited for jobbing work than for books.  Following are 60 pages of ornaments and stock cuts akin to today’s clip art, which provide a unique window into what a frontier printing shop thought appropriate for its clientele.

Spine and front cover of the Mäzmurä Dawit, an early 19th-century Ethiopic manuscript of the Book of Psalms.  (Photo by David Whitesell)

Our collection of medieval manuscript codices, fragments, and single leaves on vellum, parchment, and paper, receives constant use from U.Va. classes, Rare Book School courses, and scholarly researchers.  The manuscripts are valuable for any number of reasons, including their texts, what they reveal about the materials and methods of medieval book production, manuscript illumination, and paleographical studies of the various scripts employed by medieval scribes.  We recently acquired a manuscript codex which, we hope, will prove useful in the classroom for placing the medieval book in broader perspective.

Folio 1 recto, with decorative headpiece and first lines of text. (Photo by David Whitesell)

This finely preserved manuscript of the Mäzmurä Dawit, or Book of Psalms, is written in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.  It dates to the early 19th century but looks centuries older.  Indeed, it wonderfully demonstrates the close ties between the Western European manuscript tradition and the earlier, and more persistent, Christian tradition from which it sprang.  In appearance its blind-tooled goatskin binding over thick wooden boards resembles a 14th-century European binding.  Its parchment leaves were prepared and written using traditional methods that Europe had largely abandoned three centuries earlier as it embraced the printed book.  And in terms of illumination and binding construction, it is uniquely Ethiopian.

Two pages from Netter & Eisig’s Bucheinbandstoffe sample book (Göppingen, ca. 1912), with mounted cloth samples showing the range of colors in which this particular fabric was available. (Photo by David Whitesell)

From the 1820s onward, many books have been issued in “publisher’s cloth bindings,” i.e. bound in decorative  cloth bindings prior to public sale.  Bibliographers, booksellers, collectors, and library catalogers have traditionally described these in simple terms: “bound in publisher’s red cloth, gilt.”  Recently bookbinding historians have come to understand that, by consulting sample books distributed to commercial binderies by bookbinding cloth manufacturers, it is possible to describe publisher’s bindings far more precisely.  Such sample books are of legendary rarity, in part because the bookbinding cloth market was dominated by a handful of firms, who typically demanded the return of old sample books before new ones were sent.  Hence we were delighted to acquire a fine, complete, and previously unrecorded copy of the Bucheinbandstoffe sample book issued ca. 1912 by Netter & Eisig of Göppingen, Germany.  Included are 585 mounted samples of some 45 different fabrics showing the range of colors, qualities, and grains available.  The first three pages provide samples of 48 different specialty grains which could be embossed into most cloth rolls prior to shipment.  These cloths can be found on tens of thousands of publisher’s bindings for early 20th-century continental European imprints.

This Just In: An Artist’s Book from CODEX

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In mid-February, I took a trip out to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the biennial Codex International Book Fair, which began in 2007 and has emerged as the premier venue for artists, printers, and dealers to display and sell artists’ books, fine press editions, and book art, with a particular emphasis on fine limited editions. Held this year at the beautiful Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, which overlooks the San Francisco Bay, the fair was a light-filled, dazzling display of creative production and craftsmanship. This new venue was necessitated by the growing number of visitors and exhibitors at the last fair. If, as they say, the book is a dying medium, “they” haven’t seen the diverse productions of book artists in recent decades, nor have they observed the increasing visibility of artists’ books beyond the small world of book artists and collectors.

Looking down on the Codex booths and buyers. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

I went to the fair seeking items that would help us expand Special Collections’ already robust and diverse collection of artists’ books and fine press editions, which are used widely in teaching by academic and Rare Book School faculty alike. I left having met dozens of artists, printers, and publishers from around the world, and waited eagerly for the arrival of my various purchases for the collection.

A great artist’s book is like a great poem. When you read such a poem the first time, you see it whole, appreciate its beauty and formal sophistication, grasp it fully on some level. When you reread it, you suddenly find that you do not understand it at all, and you’re not even sure what questions you need to ask of the poem before you can begin to understand it again. The deep pleasure that poetry brings me begins when I start formulating these questions, and it does not end until I must put down the poem to go wash the dishes or answer my email. It is this type of engagement I seek when I am selecting artists’ books for the collection.

I had this kind of experience when I came across the elegant Spandrel, a collaboration between Frank Giampietro and Denise Bookwalter, published by Small Craft Advisory Press at Florida State University, which had a booth at the fair:

The front cover of Spandrel. The book is very thick and has the appearance of great heft, but is surprisingly light when you pick it up. This is due to the cut interior and the Hosho paper, which is thick and fluffy. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

The title is an architectural term that refers to the empty space at the side of an arch (I can’t seem to explain this in words–I recommend that you Google it!). The press provides an excellent description of the book’s form: “Spandrel uses traditional and non-traditional processes to play with the reading of a poem.  One poem is on the first page and slowly transforms through the 150 pages into the second poem, which is on the last page.  In the middle of the book the text is unreadable but as the viewer nears the end the text comes back into focus.”

What this description doesn’t note is that none of this is printed: the text is an absence, cut out of the book with a laser, its font like a stencil. The shadows produced by the stacks of slowly shifting cuts on subsequent pages produces the visible text:

The first page of the text proper. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

A detail view of two words on the first page of the book reveals the edges of cuts below. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

The laser printing very slightly singes the page, producing a tinge of brown around each letter. Near parallels between the text of the poem and the form of the book begin to emerge as one considers the opening page: the singed pages and “roasted almonds” share the same color. The receding darkness behind each cut on the page seems somehow connected to the “dark cabinet.” There are disjunctions too: laser cutting is a relatively new technology associated with high-tech industry, while mason jars evoke homemade preserves. But this jar doesn’t hold preserves, just as this book doesn’t hold printing. Both hold something singed by heat. There is a sort of symmetry here.

But what happens next is more interesting. Looking at the first page, one might imagine that the entire text block (the “stack” of all of the book’s pages), was laser cut in one step. Page after page, the same poem appears again and again, but soon, it begins to shift slightly, and then more, until it moves towards illegibility and then back to legibility. Each page is cut separately from a series of digitally generated tempates:

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

In the final pages, the text becomes clearer and clearer, and lighter and lighter, as there are fewer shadows to define the text. It finally resolves into this chilling poem, which takes more effort to read than the first one did:

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

The image of domestic comfort in the opening poem is replaced by one of urban violence in the latter: ball-peen hammers are a dangerous weapon. The poem’s opening symbol of happiness–whole almonds protected in a clear jar inside a closed cupboard inside a home–is replaced by an image of the layers of someone’s skin, then skull, then brain being violently broken, shattered, and compressed respectively by a heavy blow. The lack of human actors in the first poem suddenly becomes apparent.

The second poem seeks actively to shock: mason jars are replaced by snot, and the strange elegance of the opening page is utterly lost.The reader begins shifting back and forth between the two poems, seeking to understand the differences between them, the justification for their juxtaposition, the physical location in which one word or phrase replaces another. I find my own mind running down multiple interpretive paths: which wins out in this book, happiness or the social self? What would happen if the two poems traded places, and it began with the social self and ended with happiness?  Once I come to the word “ball peen” this suddenly seems to be a book about a man, since I only associate this kind of violence with men. Is he the subject of both poems? Is there a woman in the domestic space of the kitchen? And why are there almonds in the jar instead of preserves? And while I’m at it, what does any of this have to do with spandrels? It has something to do with empty spaces, with round holes produced by a hammer, with jars, cupboards. With absence–an empty house with an empty space in a cupboard, and a “social self” who experiences only violence. What lesson am I to learn from all of this? What is the poet  telling me? What is the book telling me?

There are likely no clear answers to these questions; the two poems are not entirely symmetrical, do not have some kind of straightforward causal relationship. If they did, the book would fail because it would be clever, even smug. Instead, its mysterious, discomfitting texts and physical form together produce a fertile space for contemplating the poetry, heightening the reader’s capacity to observe the very specific elements of sentences, phrases, and lines. It is a dazzling example of the productive relationship that can exist between a book and its contents.

This is just one of the many wonderful items found at the fair. Too bad I have to wait two years for the next one!

If you get overwhelmed looking at books at Codex, step just outside and take in the view. The Bay Bridge may be seen on the left. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

 

 

This Just In: A Peek Inside the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic

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In a previous post Nicole Bouché, Director of the Small Special Collections Library, related the story of how the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic arrived at its permanent home under Grounds.  Thanks to the magnificent gift of the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Novels received in 1942, U.Va. has world-renowned holdings in the English Gothic novel, now wonderfully augmented by the Lévy Collection.  Here is a brief peek at a few of its riches.

A shelf of Ann Radcliffe in French translation.

At the core of the Lévy Collection are its many contemporary French translations of English Gothic novels.  Here, for instance, is a listing of the Ann Radcliffe works to be found in the Lévy Collection:

  • Les châteaux d’Athlin et de Dunbayne. Paris: Testu, 1797.
  • Le couvent de Sainte Catherine, ou les moeurs du XIII° Siècle. Paris: Renard,1810.
  • Eléonore de Rosalba, ou le confessionnal des pénitens noirs. Paris: Lepetit, 1797.
  • La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Denne, 1796.
  • La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
  • La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Lévy, 1880.
  • L’italien, ou le confessionnal des pénitens noirs. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
  • L’italien, ou le confessionnal des pénitents noirs. Paris: Lévy, 1873.
  • Julia, ou les souterrains de Mazzini. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
  • Julia, ou les souterrains du château de Mazzini. Paris: Lévy, 1897.
  • Les mystères du château d’Udolphe. Paris: Lévy, 1874.
  • Le tombeau. Paris: Lerouge, 1812.
  • Les visions du château des Pyrénées. Paris: Lévy, 1896.

Le moine, comédie en cinq actes (Paris, an VI [1797/98])

The Gothic novel proved so popular with readers that it quickly penetrated popular culture in both England and France, attracting a wider audience.  Consider, for example, Matthew Gregory Lewis’s novel, The Monk.  It created a sensation when first published in London in 1796. The following year it was translated into French and published in Paris as Le moine, and the Lévy Collection contains a copy of the first French edition. In December of 1797 Lewis’s novel was adapted for the Paris stage, in true French fashion, as a “comédie en cinq actes, mélée de chants, danses, pantomime.” The Lévy Collection includes a fine copy of the rare printed text, which contains a cast list for the  premiere performance at the Théâtre de l’Émulation, together with, intriguingly, “des changemens et un nouveau denouement.” (Please, not a happy ending!)

Matthew Gregory Lewis, Le moine (Paris, 1797)

Reversed positions: Matthew Gregory Lewis, Le moine (Paris, an VI [1797/98])

As Nicole Bouché has noted, Maurice Lévy was fascinated by the illustrations found in French Gothic novels, and in 1973 he published a book on the subject, Images du roman noir.  Illustrations may reveal unexpected things about a publication.  For example, the first French translation of The Monk (Paris, 1797) includes an etched frontispiece depicting one of the novel’s most dramatic moments.  The translation sold so well that the same publisher issued a new edition later that same year.  But in that edition’s frontispiece, the characters switch positions.  It is likely that the publisher, not anticipating the need for a second edition, neglected to save the copperplate and therefore had to commission a new plate of the same image.  In copying the original frontispiece (which printed in reverse orientation from the design as etched on the copperplate), the etcher necessarily reversed the image!

The castles of Montreuil & Barre (London, [ca. 1820])

For those English readers who could not afford the cost of a multi-volume novel, publishers offered Gothic fiction in shorter, less expensive form.  The castles of Montreuil & Barre was first serialized in The Lady’s Magazine during 1797-1798, then printed in chapbook form (“price sixpence”) with a lurid hand-colored frontispiece to attract purchasers. Special Collections already possesses two early chapbook editions of this work, courtesy of the Sadleir-Black Collection, and the Lévy Collection contributes a third, published by W. Mason and dating to ca. 1820. This copy is in its original blue paper wrappers, which feature on the inside a list of the various chapbooks available at “Mason’s Pamphlet Warehouse” on Clerkenwell Green.

Because many of the Lévy volumes are two centuries old, they display interesting evidence of ownership and use by multiple generations of readers and collectors.  Two works in the Lévy collection, for instance, bear the booklabel of noted artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901).  It is shown here (above Maurice Lévy’s booklabel), pasted into a copy of the intriguingly titled Miss Glamour, ou les hommes dangereux (Paris, an IX [1800/01]).  Styled on the title-page as a ‘free translation from the English’ by Théodore-Pierre Bertin, the original English novel has yet to be positively identified. Perhaps Bertin, who self-published this very rare edition, was actually its author?

Emanuella, ou la découverte premature (Paris, an IX [1800/01]) is a French translation of Eliza Haywood’s The rash resolve, or the untimely discovery. First published in 1724, decades before the heyday of the Gothic novel in England, its plot nonetheless contains some Gothic elements, and it is interesting to see it revived at this time for the French market. Also interesting is the provenance: this copy bears the booklabels of (at top) prolific author Paul Lacroix (“Bibliophile Jacob,” 1806-1884) and (at bottom) the founder of Surrealism, André Breton (1896-1966).  Fittingly, Breton’s arresting booklabel was designed by Salvador Dalí.

This Just In: The Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic

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This week Nicole Bouché, Director of Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, relates the story of how a major new acquisition came to U.Va.:

Maurice Lévy in his Toulouse study, seated before the glass-front bookcase containing his French Gothic collection.

“I have now reached a time in life where one inevitably ponders over the fate of the books one may have had the good fortune to collect over the years.”  —Maurice Lévy

Serendipity often plays a role in building great library collections, and a chance encounter between an institution and a scholar can yield an extraordinary and wholly unanticipated legacy years, sometimes decades, later.  Such is the story of the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic, a recent bequest of over 450 rare books now housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Sometime in the early 1960s, Maurice Lévy (1929-2012), then a graduate student of English Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, proposed to write his dissertation on the American writer, William Faulkner.  “Ah, but we don’t write dissertations on living authors” was the (predictable) reply from the French academy.

Instead, the young scholar was assigned to write about English gothic literature. With the help of a summer fellowship Lévy found his way to U.Va., where he spent three months immersed in an intensive study of the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction, among the world’s finest collections on the gothic genre. Lévy’s dissertation, Le Roman “Gothique” Anglais, 1764-1824, became a standard source and helped to revive scholarly interest in the field, and Lévy became a recognized authority on the gothic genre. Maurice’s final work, a scholarly edition of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ classic gothic tale, The Monk, was published posthumously in 2012.

Maurice Lévy’s doctoral dissertation, based in part on research done with U.Va.’s Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction.

At the end of his fellowship, Lévy returned to France, never to return to Charlottesville, but with fond memories of his summer on Grounds. By his own account, he was never again in contact with the U.Va. Library, or with the Rare Book Department staff that had been so welcoming and helpful during his stay.

Jump forward several decades:  Lévy, now an emeritus professor of the Université de Toulouse, “pondered” what do with the treasured collection of French editions of gothic novels that he had painstakingly assembled.  An American colleague recalled how Maurice frequently spoke with deep appreciation of his summer spent in Charlottesville. Might U.Va. be a possibility?  And thus, in the fall of 2009, an e-mail arrived in Special Collections from an “unknown” French scholar, inquiring whether the library might perhaps be interested in acquiring his collection.

… most of them first or early editions: about 60 titles, representing something like 200-250 volumes …. which compose, literally speaking, the French side of the same literary movement and could perhaps be considered by future researchers as a helpful complement, however modest and limited in size, of the prestigious Sadleir-Black collection.

I am currently looking for a home for this collection, which, although relatively modest in size when compared to others, has the advantage of illustrating the extraordinary vogue of the “roman noir” during the French Revolutionary period, and of including volumes which offer the distinctive feature (not shared by corresponding English volumes) of being individually illustrated with frontispieces by (most of them) reputed engravers. To pay homage to their talent, I published Images de Roman Noir in 1973 [Paris, Losfeld].

Should you be interested in this donation, I would take the necessary legal steps to ensure that they eventually come into your possession after my demise, so that they may be made available to future students.

If, on the occasion of a visit to France, you wished to inspect the books, you would be very welcome to do so.

Lévy’s letter included a detailed title list. We were instantly intrigued, and our interest was quickly echoed by members of the English and French faculty. Whatever the likely costs (not to mention bureaucratic hassles) associated with shipping a large antiquarian book collection from overseas, this offer clearly merited serious consideration.  A site visit was definitely in order.  Happily, I had already planned a visit to France; a detour to spend a few days in Toulouse with Professor Lévy and his wife, Ellen (an American) was easily added to the schedule.  Professor Lévy would meet me at the train station in Toulouse, where I would recognize him by the sign (“GOTHIC”) that he would be carrying.

As we conversed on our first evening together at the Lévy home, warm memories of Charlottesville, surrounded by the riches of the Sadleir-Black Collection and the gracious hospitality of then Rare Book Librarian John Cook Wyllie and his colleagues, were still vivid in Maurice’s mind.  It took very little time to confirm our interest in accepting the Lévy collection. And so we spent two enjoyable days reviewing and inventorying a seemingly endless stream of compact little volumes from the late 18th and early 19th century, almost all in their original, often quite striking French bindings.

“Oh, the horror!” groan the sagging shelves of Maurice Lévy’s bookcase.

The large, glass fronted, wooden book cabinet in which they were stored occupied an entire wall of his study. It was tightly packed two, sometimes three, rows deep, and its thick wooden shelves were so full that they bowed at the center, giving the impression that the entire bookcase was weighed down by the burden of keeping these precious volumes safe from harm.

Maurice removed each work as though he were encountering an old friend. He would pause for a moment to recall the circumstances of their first acquaintance: when, from whom, and where had he acquired the title? What drew them together, and what special significance justified the volume’s retention and inclusion in the “special” bookcase?  After a moment’s quiet reflection, Maurice would “introduce” the book to me, and we would add it to our growing list of titles destined for Virginia.

As our work progressed, it became clear that Maurice’s collection of French gothic accounted for only a small portion of the overtaxed bookcase’s contents. The remaining titles, he explained, were not his “French gothic collection” and would no doubt eventually find a home in France.  There was neither time (nor encouragement) to explore these volumes: Maurice, after all, was still consulting his library for ongoing research.

I devoted a return visit in 2011 to assessing Maurice’s extensive reference library on the gothic. No further reference was made to the other, intriguing “old” volumes, which remained undisturbed in the bookcase. However, Maurice had decided that it was nearly time to see the French gothics safely installed at U.Va.  We therefore said our good-byes with the understanding that I would return the following summer to oversee packing and shipment. Tragically, Maurice did not live to see the final transfer of his collection to U.Va.  He succumbed to a long illness only weeks before my return to Toulouse in the summer of 2012. It remained for his widow, Ellen, his children, and the U.Va. Library to follow through on the terms of Maurice’s bequest.

But there was a new twist.  Shortly before his death, as Maurice still had not arranged for the disposition of the remaining rare books in the old bookcase, his wife Ellen asked him about them. What should she do with them? “Offer them first to Virginia,” was his reply.  And so she did. It was an interesting prospect, but just what books were they? Ellen could tell me little, occupied as she was with other family and personal matters. And so I arrived in Toulouse late last July to arrange for the final packing and shipment of the ca. 250 volumes in the Lévy French gothic collection, and to ascertain which, if any, of the remaining books might be of interest to the U.Va. Library.

What I encountered was a revelation and delight!  As I made my way systematically through the bookcase, a pattern slowly but unmistakably emerged.  This was not a miscellaneous assortment of old books, but a complementary collection of rare (some extremely rare) and early works of gothic literature, many in  English, augmented by various 18th-and 19th-century source materials used and cited in Maurice’s scholarly writings.  The supplementary material included such works as Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Idea of the Sublime and the Beautiful (London, 1801), and Edward Mangin’s An Essay on Light Reading, as it May be Supposed to Influence Moral Conduct and Literary Taste (London, 1808). Maurice’s copy of the Dictionnaire royal françois-anglois, et anglois-françois (London, 1773) would have been an invaluable resource for study of translations, and then there was L’Art de former les jardins modernes; ou l’art des jardins anglois (Paris, 1771). What gothic novel doesn’t have a garden as a significant “setting”!

We were delighted by the new discoveries, and the possibilities that this expanded universe of resources would offer to students of gothic and related themes. It was quickly decided that virtually the entire contents of the bookcase would be packed and shipped to Charlottesville.  In due course, and with only the usual customs and other delays, the collection arrived last fall at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, where it now waits patiently in the cataloging queue.

Special Collections staff unload the Maurice Lévy French Gothic collection, October 9, 2012.

The Lévy family, for their part, was delighted and relieved to see Maurice’s treasured “rare book cabinet” transferred virtually intact to its new and permanent home at U. Va., where it will be consulted by future generations of students and scholars of the “gothic,” and serve as a permanent tribute to Maurice’s life and career as a scholar, teacher, and mentor.  Nothing, they felt, would have pleased Maurice more. And like many other collections “under Grounds,” the Lévy collection also serves as an instructive reminder of how great library collections may be built, to a significant degree, by the cumulative legacies of chance encounters.

(A future posting will feature more highlights from the Lévy collection.)

The Maurice Lévy French Gothic collection as it looks today, under Grounds.

This Just In: What’s New in the McGregor Library

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1938 was an annus mirabilis for the U.Va. Library and its Special Collections: Alderman Library opened; Special Collections moved into purpose-built quarters on the second floor (today’s McGregor Room); and U.Va. was given the Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History.  This extraordinary holding of several thousand rare books, maps, and manuscripts, assembled by Detroit philanthropist Tracy W. McGregor (1869-1936), instantly provided U.Va. with a world-class collection of primary sources for American history.  In 2013 the McGregor Library will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a major exhibition opening in October.

Since 1938 the McGregor Library has nearly tripled in size, thanks to substantial ongoing support from the McGregor Fund.  The following sampling from the several dozen acquisitions made in 2012 suggests not only the McGregor Library’s range and depth, but also some of the criteria we use in selecting additions.

Oliver Hart, Dancing exploded. Charlestown, S.C.: David Bruce, 1778. (A 1778 .H27, McGregor Endowment & Associates Endowment Funds, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

One of the McGregor Library’s greatest strengths is its coverage of the American South, and this remains a collecting priority.  Particularly desirable are rare Southern imprints such as Oliver Hart’s memorably titled Dancing exploded, published in Charleston, S.C. in 1778.  A Baptist minister, Hart (1723-1795) first preached this sermon condemning dancing and fancy dress balls in 1759.  Nineteen years later, he found it necessary to fix his admonition in print. No sooner had the embers of Charleston’s devastating January 15, 1778 fire cooled than “we had Balls, Assemblies and Dances in every quarter.”  The conflagration, coupled with the ongoing privations of the American Revolution, were for Hart “so many loud calls to repentance, reformation of life, and prayer, that the wrath of God may be turned away from us.”  Hart specifies fourteen evils of dancing, including wasted time, unnecessary expense, vulgar music, and immodesty of conversation and movement. “Thus the heart becomes a sink of uncleanness—a cage of all manner of abominable and filthy lusts.”  Only six copies are recorded of this, the third earliest American work on dance.  (The McGregor Library also holds the earliest, Increase Mather’s An arrow against profane and promiscuous dancing.)

The trial and acquittal of Mary Moriarty. Memphis: Memphis Typographical Association, Morning Bulletin Office, 1856. (A 1856 .T75, McGregor Endowment Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

We are especially eager to add unrecorded works to the McGregor Library.  One might think that copies of virtually everything printed a century or two ago would have found their way into libraries by now, but previously unknown works continue to turn up with surprising frequency.  It is our mission to make these new discoveries accessible to scholars.  A case in point is The trial and acquittal of Mary Moriarty: the only known copy surfaced only last year and was quickly snapped up for the McGregor Library.  An Irish immigrant working as a domestic in antebellum Memphis, Mary Moriarty was engaged to wed John Shehan, the father of her child, only to have Shehan back out at the last minute.  In a rage, Mary stabbed him to death in broad daylight.  Attorney Milton Haynes expertly defended her in front of an all-male jury, arguing per the Bible “that he who seduces a maid, upon the most solemn vow of marriage, hath committed a worse crime than that of murder!”  The jury then “retired for a few minutes, and returned a verdict of ‘NOT GUILTY,’ the announcement of which was enthusiastically cheered by the large crowd of people in the Court House.”  Capitalizing on the case’s notoriety, the Memphis Morning Bulletin condensed and repackaged its newspaper coverage in this crudely printed pamphlet.

Historia nova, e complete da America. Lisboa: Officina Litteraria do Arco do Cego, 1800. (A 1800 .H57, McGregor Endowment Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

The McGregor Library is especially rich in “European Americana.”  These European imprints provide many of our best primary sources for New World discovery and exploration, as well as alternate perspectives on American history and culture.  Historia nova, e complete da America is the latest addition.  This rare history of the Americas from Columbus’s discovery to 1763 was compiled for a Portuguese audience from a variety of sources.  Printed in 1800 at the newly founded “Arco do Cego” press (still active as Portugal’s Imprensa Nacional), the Historia reflects Portugal’s late 18th-century effort to invigorate its arts and sciences.

William Charles. A wasp taking a frolick, or a sting for Johnny Bull. [Philadelphia]: Wm. Charles, [ca. 1813] (Broadside 1813 .C55, McGregor Endowment Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

A little-known strength of the McGregor Library is its collection of early 19th-century American satirical prints, recently augmented by two rare etchings by William Charles. Around 1806 Charles emigrated from Scotland to the United States, where he helped to introduce the thriving British tradition of political caricature.  During the War of 1812 Charles issued a number of prints which vividly and humorously convey American popular opinion.  In A wasp taking a frolick, or a sting for Johnny Bull, Charles references the heroic naval engagements of the U.S.S. Wasp and Hornet during the war’s first months. The Hornet captured several British ships, and the Wasp also “stung” John Bull by capturing two British warships before surrendering to a far larger British vessel.

Lunsford Lane, The narrative of Lunsford Lane. 3rd ed. Boston: [Lunsford Lane], 1845. (A 1845 .L3, McGregor Endowment Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

The McGregor Library possesses an enviable collection of antebellum slave narratives, of which The narrative of Lunsford Lane, in its original printed wrappers, is a noteworthy example. Typically these narratives were self-published (as here) and sold for the author’s benefit while traveling the anti-slavery lecture circuit. Lane was born into slavery on a plantation near Raleigh, N.C., but his wife and growing family were owned by a different master.  With his owner’s tacit consent, Lane rented out his own labor so that he could establish a pipe and tobacco shop in Raleigh.  It thrived, in part because Lane was careful to maintain the appearance of being poor and uneducated.  Eventually Lane earned enough to purchase his freedom, open more businesses, and begin to emancipate his wife and children.  By 1840, however, Lane found himself the target of whites fearful that he was spreading abolitionist sentiments. Two years later he fled with his newly freed family to Boston.

This Just In: Translations by Jorge Luis Borges

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Virginia Woolf, Orlando. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1945. (PQ7797 .B635 O73 1945, Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

The celebrated Argentinian author (and sometime librarian) Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was famous for his fictional account of the universal library which, because it contains all information, is useless.  Since 1977 the U.Va. Library has built one of the world’s great collections on Borges, encompassing significant manuscripts as well as writings by and about Borges in multiple editions and languages.  Our modest aim has been to form the universal library of Borges, a collection we have found to be far from useless!  Housed under Grounds in Special Collections, the Borges collection was initially described in 1993 by its first curator, C. Jared Lowenstein, in A descriptive catalogue of the Jorge Luis Borges collection at the University of Virginia Library.  Then numbering 979 entries, the collection has since grown to nearly 1,200 entries.  (To see them, search Virgo for “Jorge Luis Borges” and limit to Special Collections.)

Franz Kafka, La metamorphosis. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1943. (PQ7797 .B635 V4718 1943, Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

Through the good offices of a Buenos Aires bookseller, Special Collections recently added thirty more titles to the collection.  Of particular note are several works Borges translated into Spanish, a lesser-known aspect of his literary career. Indeed, Borges’s earliest publication, at the age of 11, was a Spanish translation of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, published in a Buenos Aires newspaper. Translation also figures prominently in several of Borges’s most celebrated stories.

Proficient in English, French, German, Italian, and later Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, Borges read widely in world literature.  By publishing Spanish translations of numerous works in his newspaper columns and in book form, Borges was instrumental in introducing many contemporary writers to a Latin American audience.  Special Collections already owned Borges’s translations of such authors as William Faulkner, André Gide, and Walt Whitman.  Newly added translations, some with illuminating prefaces by Borges, include Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (a copy signed by Borges); Virginia Woolf’s Orlando; Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the scrivener (“Preferiría no hacerlo”); Henri Michaux’s A Barbarian in Asia; and the first part of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda.  For the last Borges teamed with his wife, Maria Kodama.  During the 1930s and 1940s, as he went blind, Borges was often assisted by his mother, who published several Spanish translations of her own, including a collection of short stories by D.H. Lawrence.

Herman Melville, Bartleby. Buenos Aires: EDICOM, 1969. (PQ7797 .B635 B38 1969, Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

Borges’s translations provide valuable insights into his literary art.  Many of the works Borges selected for translation directly influenced specific elements of his own writing.  Of special interest is Borges’s theory of translation for, as one critic has wryly noted, Borges held that “an original can be unfaithful to a translation.”  Rather than offer readers a literal translation, Borges did not hesitate to “improve” the original as he saw fit, believing that the work was ultimately more important than its creator.  And because Borges frequently revised his own works—including the translations—from edition to edition, it is critical for scholarship that all lifetime editions of Borges’ writings be collected in one place and made available for textual comparison.  That place—the Aleph, if you will—is under Grounds, in Special Collections.

Henri Michaux, Un bárbaro en Asia. Buenos Aires: Sur, 1941. (PQ7797 .B635 B3718 1941, Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

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Postscript:  Acquisitions are the lifeblood of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.  Our holdings of books, manuscripts, archives, ephemera, maps, photographs, digital media, and other formats grow constantly by design and serendipity, singly and in bulk, through gift, purchase, and transfer from individuals, publishers, book and manuscript dealers, auction houses, other libraries, and U.Va. departments.  Hardly a day passes without at least one significant acquisition arriving under Grounds.  Curious about what relevant materials this acquisitions flood is bringing your way?  Finding out is easy: simply do a Virgo search for “2012/2013” and limit it to Special Collections in order to see what we’ve added since the fiscal year began on July 1.  New acquisitions will also appear, as appropriate, in any Virgo search you make.

“This Just In” will sample the acquisitions stream, periodically showcasing one or more new and noteworthy items.  Our goal is not only to inform you of interesting acquisitions but to demystify the process through which we build our collections: how we select new acquisitions, where we find them, how these broaden and strengthen our existing holdings, and how these enhance research and instruction on, and under, Grounds.  Please come visit!

D. H. Lawrence, La mujer que se fué a caballo. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1946. (PQ7797 .B635 Z999 .A25 M8 1946, Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund, image by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)