Samuel V. Lemley Wins the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest

Samuel V. Lemley displays his 2018 National Student Book Collecting Contest First Prize certificate.

On Friday, October 19, bibliophiles from around the nation gathered at the Library of Congress for the presentation of the 2018 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest awards. Established in 2005 to recognize bibliophilic excellence among American college and university students, the annual competition is open to the first place winners of the over 40 collegiate book collecting competitions held nationwide. The national contest is jointly administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies, the Grolier Club, and the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book and Rare Books and Special Collections Division.

Samuel V. Lemley discusses his collection of Sicilian imprints at the awards ceremony for the 2018 National Student Book Collecting Contest. Seated behind is awards presenter Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.

This year’s First Prize winner is U.Va. doctoral candidate in English Samuel V. Lemley, whose entry, Biblioteca Genealogica: Sicilian Printing, 1704-1893, won the 52nd U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest held earlier this year.  Several U.Va. Contest winners have won national awards in previous years, but Sam is the first to claim the top prize.  In addition to a cash award of $2,500, he will receive a year’s membership in the Grolier Club, the nation’s leading bibliophilic society.  Students from the University of Kansas, Harvard University, and Washington University also received national awards at the awards presentation in the Library of Congress’s Montpelier Room.

Visitors under Grounds may recall seeing highlights from Sam’s collection on display last spring in the First Floor corridor leading to the Special Collections Reading Room.  Special Collections was pleased to honor the winners of the 52nd U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest–Samuel V. Lemley, James P. Ascher, and Philip M. Tan–by hosting an exhibition drawn from their collections.

The U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest is one of many activities undertaken by the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia.  Watch their website for news of the 53rd U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest!

Calling All U.Va. Student Book Collectors!

Since 1948 the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia has been pleased to sponsor a book collecting contest open to all U.Va. students. Originally held annually, and now biennially, the contest offers all students a chance to showcase their personal book collections, and to win substantial cash prizes as well. Entries are now being accepted for the 52nd U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest. The deadline for submissions is February 12, 2018. Winners will be announced at the BSUVA’s annual meeting on Friday, March 23, 2018 n the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

To enter, students submit a list of items in their collection along with a short essay describing its contents and their objectives in forming the collection. Judges evaluate entries on the basis of the collection’s coherence of focus, method of collecting, progress made in forming the collection, and the quality of the descriptive essay. Collections are not judged on dollar value or size.

The first place winner receives a $1,000 cash prize and a $1,395 scholarship covering the full tuition for a Rare Book School course; the winner is also eligible to enter this year’s National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. Prizes of $600 and $300 are awarded for second and third place respectively. In addition, eight local booksellers have generously contributed gift certificates to be distributed among the contest winners.

Winners of the 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest: Nora Benedict (at left) and Isaac May (at front), with contest judge David Whitesell. (Photo courtesy of David Vander Meulen)

Winners of the 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest: Nora Benedict (at left) and Isaac May (at front), with one of the contest judges David Whitesell. (Photo courtesy of David Vander Meulen)

The previous U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest — the 51st — was held in 2016. First prize was awarded to Nora Benedict, doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, for her entry, “Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges.”

Selections from Nora Benedict's winning entry, "Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges."

Selections from Nora Benedict’s winning entry, “Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges.”

Isaac May, a doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies, was awarded second prize for his entry, “Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications.”

Highlights from Isaac May's entry, "Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications"

Highlights from Isaac May’s entry, “Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications”

In conjunction with each biennial contest, the Small Special Collections Library is pleased to host an exhibition of highlights from the winners’ collections. This year’s exhibition will be on view in the first floor hallway leading to the Special Collections reading room from March 23 through April 13.

The 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest

Winners of the 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest: Nora Benedict (at left) and Isaac May (at front), with contest judge David Whitesell. (Photo courtesy of David Vander Meulen)

Winners of the 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest: Nora Benedict (at left) and Isaac May (at front), with one of the contest judges David Whitesell. (Photo courtesy of David Vander Meulen)

Since 1948 the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia has been pleased to sponsor a book collecting contest open to all U.Va. students. Originally held annually, and now biennially, the contest offers all students a chance to showcase their personal book collections, and to win substantial cash prizes as well. To enter, students submit a list of items in their collection along with a short essay describing its contents and their objectives in forming the collection. Judges consider collections on the basis of coherence of focus, method of collecting, progress made in creating the collection, and the quality of the explanation of the collection’s focus. Collections are not judged on dollar value or size. The first place winner receives a $500 cash prize and a $1,295 scholarship covering the entire tuition for a Rare Book School course; the winner is also eligible to enter this year’s National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. Prizes of $300 and $175 are awarded for second and third place respectively. This year ten local booksellers have also contributed gift certificates, which are distributed among the contest winners.

Selections from Nora Benedict's winning entry, "Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges."

Selections from Nora Benedict’s winning entry, “Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges.”

At the BSUVA’s annual meeting, held on March 18 in the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, winners of the 51st U.Va. Student Book Collecting Contest were announced. First prize was awarded to Nora Benedict, doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, for her entry, “Argentine Publishing and the Many Faces of Jorge Luis Borges.” Isaac May, a doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies, was awarded second prize for his entry, “Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications.”

Highlights from Isaac May's entry, "Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications"

Highlights from Isaac May’s entry, “Collecting and Preserving Anglo-American Quaker Publications”

The Small Special Collections Library is pleased to partner with the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia in mounting an exhibition of highlights from the winners’ collections. The exhibition will remain on view in the first floor hallway leading to the Special Collections reading room through April 28.

This Just In: A Tolkien Black Swan

This week, we feature a very unusual recent acquisition in a guest post by Special Collections curatorial assistant Elizabeth Ott, doctoral candidate in the U.Va. Department of English.

In the world of Special Collections it may be said that some books are born rare, some achieve rareness, and some have rareness thrust upon them. The last is the case for the unassuming blue pamphlet titled Songs for the Philologists, which recently made its way to the stacks of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. A strange admixture of chance and circumstance has conspired to make this pamphlet, co-authored by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, the rarest publication of Tolkien’s career.

The front cover of Songs for the Philologists, which lists Tolkien first among the volume's authors.  PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.

The front cover of Songs for the Philologists, which lists Tolkien first among the volume’s authors. PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.

During his tenure at Leeds University, Tolkien formed, with Gordon, a society known as the “Viking Club” devoted to reading Old Norse sagas and drinking beer. Sometime in 1934, Tolkien and Gordon prepared a set of typescripts of verses, including original compositions of their own devising as well as traditional songs in Old and Modern English and other languages. The typescripts were distributed to students from the club for their amusement.

Among those who received copies was former student A.H. Smith, then of University College London, who used his copies of the typescripts as a printing exercise for his own students in 1936. An unknown (but undoubtedly small) number of pamphlets were hand-set and privately printed by students on a replica wooden common press (not unlike the replica press located on the 2nd floor of  U.Va.’s Alderman Library in the Stettinius Gallery). Smith realized, after the pamphlets had already been printed, that he had not obtained permission from Tolkien and Gordon, so the pamphlet was never distributed. Instead, copies were kept in storage at the pressrooms on Gower Street.

The building was bombed in WWII. The pressrooms burned, along with the presses and any stock stored on the premises. The only copies of the pamphlet that survived were those that had been taken by the students who printed it. It is not known how many copies survived, though H. Winifred Husbands, one of the students involved in the printing, has estimated the number at thirteen.

There are thirty compositions in the book, including thirteen by Tolkien himself. Several of the verses reappear in later publications, altered or repurposed. A notable example is the poem “The Root of the Boot.” The poem was originally titled “Pero & Podex” (Boot and Bottom), but is also sometimes referred to as the Troll Song. In early drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo sings it in the Prancing Pony in chapter nine. Readers will remember that it finally appears as Sam’s song in chapter twelve of the published version of the same book, and as “The Stone Troll” in Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Other poems poke fun at the academic community: Tolkien’s “Lit’ and Lang’” originally contained direct references to Leeds University, and was altered to omit them during printing. Tolkien noted, in 1966, that the alterations had the unfortunate side effect of breaking the rhyme.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Root Boot as it appears in the volume. Image displayed with permission of the J.R.R. Tolkien Literary Estate.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Root of the Boot” as it appears in the volume. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.) Image displayed with permission of the J.R.R. Tolkien Literary Estate. ©The Tolkien Estate Limited 2014

J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lit and Lang" as it appears in the volume. Image displayed with permission of the J. R. R. Tolkien Literary Estate

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lit’ and Lang'” as it appears in the volume. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.) Image displayed with permission of the J. R. R. Tolkien Literary Estate. ©The Tolkien Estate Limited 2014

So how did such a rare find come to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections? In late 2013, Joan Kellogg, the widow of Professor of English and expert in Old Icelandic Robert Kellogg, generously invited curator Molly Schwartzburg to take from Professor Kellogg’s home library any volumes wanted for Special Collections. Almost two hundred rare and unusual items, from modern first editions to Icelandic travelogues and books of mythology, came to the library as a result of Mrs. Kellogg’s generosity. Many years ago, Professor Kellogg had donated to the library many remarkable books from the James Joyce collection of his father, Joyce scholar Charles E. Kellogg. Songs for the Philologists lacks a bookplate, so we do not know whether the book belonged to the father or the son; it has strong ties to both of their research interests. The library was pleased to be able to share our excitement about the Tolkien item with Mrs. Kellogg before she passed away on December 31, 2013.

The Kellogg copy of “Songs for the Philologists” is one of only four copies held by libraries in the United States and one of eight held by libraries worldwide. Fantasy fans and Old Norse addicts alike are encouraged to consult the pamphlet for inspiration in starting their own “Viking Club” here on grounds.

Detail of the back cover of the volume.

Detail of the back cover of the volume, showing a device used by the print shop of the University College, London. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.)

Class Notes: 250 Years of Fairy Tales in Print

Professor Mark Ilsemann recently brought his class, German 3590: Special Topics–Fairy Tales, to Special Collections to see materials related to the European fairy-tale tradition. He asked if we could “give my students an idea about early collections of tales and the formation of ‘fairy tale’ as a genre; teach them about the importance/style of illustrations and other forms of book art; show them how fairy tale collections were ‘framed’ by their respective authors (through frontispieces, opening remarks, etc.); and to demonstrate to students the importance of the book object and of working with historical artifacts.”

Oh yeah, we could do that. Little did he know the extent of the riches at our disposal.

A selection of fairy tales (Photograph by Molly Schwartzburg)

A selection of fairy tale editions, anthologies, recordings, toys, and even finger puppets! (Photograph by Molly Schwartzburg)

Curator Molly Schwartzburg wowed his class with an eclectic selection of some of the fascinating and visually stunning fairy tales that comprise our collections. In turn, Professor Ilsemann provided a great deal of insight on the history of fairy-tale publishing, and his students jumped in with comments based on the knowledge they’ve gained so far this semester. As is often the case, we wondered if we gained even more from the session than our visitors!

Professor Ilsemann explains the likely origins of this unusual and beautiful moveable book. He noticed that the publisher was associated with the Waldorf School movement, based in Stuttgart, where the book was published. The book’s flowing text and images, seem to echo the Waldorf philosophy, which requires that classrooms contain no right angles. (PZ34 .S358 1926. Henry S. Gordon Fund, 2009/2010. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Professor Ilsemann explains the likely origins of this unusual and beautiful moveable book. He noticed that the publisher was associated with the Waldorf School movement, based in Stuttgart, where the book was published. The book’s flowing text and images seem to echo the Waldorf philosophy, which requires that classrooms contain no right angles. Hilde Langen, Schneewittchen (Stuttgart: Waldorf-Spielzeug & Verlad G.m.b.H., 1926). (PZ34 .S358 1926. Henry S. Gordon Fund, 2009/2010. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Many of the items we discussed were from Special Collections’s remarkable Little Red Riding Hood Collection, generously donated in 2007 by collector Martha Orr Davenport.  The collection comprises approximately 480 books, a hundred pieces of print ephemera, fifty works of art, ten magic lantern slides, and more than a hundred objects, including tableware, figurines, vases, pottery, puppets, recordings, and more.

Detail of items from the Little Red Riding Hood Collection (Gift of Martha Orr Davenport. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Just a few of the items in our Little Red Riding Hood Collection. (Gift of Martha Orr Davenport. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

The students also were drawn in by several fabulous pop-up books from the Brenda Foreman Collection of Pop-Up and Moveable Books.

Molly and the students take a closer look at pop-up books. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Molly and the students take a closer look at pop-up books. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Hansel and Gretel from the "Pop-Up" Cinderella and Other Tales with illustrations by Harold B. Lentz, 1933.  (PZ92 .F6 L46 1933b. Brenda Forman Collection of Pop-Up and Moveable Books. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Hansel and Gretel from Harold P. Lentz’s  “Pop-Up” Cinderella and Other Tales, 1933. (PZ92 .F6 L46 1933b. Brenda Forman Collection of Pop-Up and Moveable Books. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Perhaps a student paper or two about these magical books will be in hand by the semester’s end, inspired by this wonderful introduction!

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

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

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.