The Queen's College Collection
The Queen's College Collection consists of the theological and ecclesiastical history collections of Queen's College, a Church of England college associated with Memorial University of Newfoundland. The collection, containing non-circulating and circulating items, is currently housed at the Queen Elizabeth II Library.
The Circulating Collection
The circulating collection of approximately 4,650 items is integrated with the main library holdings and may be searched by using the Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries' Catalogue (select "Advanced Search" and limit the search "collection" to "Queen College Collection.").
Rare and other non-circulating materials
The 4,321 items in the non-circulating Queen's College Collection include works published between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. The majority of the works are in English, though there are works in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Gaelic. There are also a number of Hexaglot bibles. The collection holds works in theology and ecclesiastical history, including many Church of England publications, as well as devotional literature, sermons (several large sets), sacred allegories, biblical commentaries, concordances to scriptures, hymns, memoirs, books on church law, church antiquities and works about other religious traditions (Islam and Buddhism). The Collection also contains works in psychology (pastoral and general), biography, general history, poetry, postmodernism, philosophy, language and literature, including a 1793 edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. There are many nineteenths century editions of the works of classical authors, including Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Homer, Lipsius, Ovid, Pliny and Virgil, to name a few. Among the editions are some very rare materials, not the least of which is an edition of the Bishop's Bible from 1585, a Geneva Bible from 1608, and a Scottish Book of Common Prayer from 1637 (first edition). Other bibles of note include a second edition of the first translation of the bible into Italian 'La Sacra Bibbia' (1641), as well as a bible in Greek, Latin and German published in Hamburg in 1596. Excluding bibles, there are interesting examples of early printed works, including a commentary on Homer by Eustathius, Bishop of Thessolonica, published by the Froben publishing house in 1560; and a commentary on the psalms by Denis the Carthusian published 1542. There is a New Testament (1633) from the famous Harleian Library, bearing the signature of E. Harley (dated 1715). There are many ornate pulpit bibles from the 18th 19th centuries, some of them bearing interesting inscriptions. There is a first edition of Elizabeth Twining's Illustrations Of The Natural Orders Of Plants With Groups and Descriptions from 1849 and 1855 . Finally, the Collection holds an important subset of titles identified with Thomas Bray (1658-1730) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Access
Rare and non-circulating items from the Queen's College Collection are not yet catalogued; however, a bibliography of the holdings may be viewed on the Digital Archives Initiative website. The Collection is not open for browsing. Items from the collections do not circulate but can be viewed at the Archives and Special Collections reading room (located immediately behind the Centre for Newfoundland Studies service desk). Please cite the item number from the bibliography.
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Archives and Special Collections Queen Elizabeth II Library Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, Newfoundland & Labrador Canada A1B 3Y1 Telephone:864-4349 Fax: 709-864-2153 E-mail: archives@mun.ca |
March 21, 2012
