The QEII Library's General Rare Books Collection
The Queen Elizabeth II Library's general rare books collection contains over 11,000 items in many languages, with works falling in all subject areas of the LC Classification System. The collection comprises not merely hard-to-obtain or collectible items but also volumes that require more careful handling. These include works with an early publication date; manuscripts and typescripts; presentation/association copies; first editions of belles-lettres and of classics in other subject areas; copies of an edition issued in a limited print run; editions which, because of some aspects of their physical makeup, are unusually interesting examples of the art of book-design; items which, because of their physical condition or format, are especially liable to be damaged, misplaced or lost; works or particular editions of works difficult or impossible to replace. The collection does not contain material related to Newfoundland and Labrador. Rare printed materials, manuscript and archival material related to the province are housed in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies and in the Archives.
The following descriptions offer a general introduction to various subject areas within the general rare books collection. They are not meant to be exhaustive. Descriptions of other subject areas will be added over time.
Language and Literature
The Queen Elizabeth II Library's general rare books collection's holdings in Language and Literature cover the sixteenth century to the present. The earliest printed work in this collection-and the second oldest held by Memorial University Libraries-is a version of Ovid's Heroides from 1510. Other notable works include an outstanding collection of published material by and about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, including an early volume of his juvenilia entitled simply Poems 1803, as well as the very rare first collected edition of his poems Sibylline Leaves published in 1817. Coleridge's prose works are also well represented by early editions. Foremost among these is a set of early editions of The Friend, Coleridge's first major prose work, including an exceedingly rare first edition (1809-10). In addition to these highlights, the general rare books collection holds early editions of works by Poisson, Racine, Dryden, Dumas, Eluard, Cowley, Defoe, Stern, Milton (4th edition of Paradise Lost), Southey, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shaw, Tennyson, Meredith and Thomas Hardy, to name a few, as well as eighteenth and nineteenth century editions of Shakespeare's complete works. There are also early grammar books, phrase books and readers in many different languages; literary criticism and essays; poetry anthologies, and many individual collections of poetry; works of fiction; publisher's series (Abbey Theatre Series; Bell's British Theatre; Aldine Edition of the British Poets); as well as periodicals from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, e.g. The Spectator, Tatler, The Gem, and The Pearl."
As well as rare historical literary works, the general rare books collection also holds literary works of more recent origin. Notable in this grouping of materials is The Gauntlet Press Collection, consisting of broadsides and full-length poetry collections issued by Canadian poet Richard Outram and Canadian artist Barbara Howard. Also notable among the more recent materials is the strong presence of limited edition autographed works from a variety of British, Irish, Scottish, Canadian and American writers, including the following: Austin Clarke, Roy Fuller, Robert Graves; Michael Hamburger, Thomas Kinsella, Ciaran Carson, Kathleen Raine, George Mckay Brown, George McBeth, Seamus Heaney, Alan Brownjohn, John F Deane, George Szirtes, Richard Wilbur, Alan Ginsberg, ee cummings, Paul Bowles, John Ashbery, John Berryman, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, Louis Zukofsky; Margaret Atwood, Robert Kroetsch, PK Page, Irving Layton, Al Purdy, Joe Rosenblatt, Raymond Souster, Brian Bartlett and Robert Bringhurst, to name a few. The general rare books collection also holds signed early editions by W.B Yeats, by Lady Gregory, as well as a large number of first editions from the Cuala Press.
Science and Mathematics
The QEII general rare books collection holds a wide range of scientific works with concentrations in geology, chemistry (early works to 1800), botany and natural history. Most works are in the English language, though the collection also contains publications in Italian, French, German and Japanese. Notable titles include: Sir Isaac Newton's The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729), a rare first edition English translation of Newton's Principia; The third edition (1861) of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, one of only 2000 printed; William Salmon's Botanologia (1710), considered the last great English woodcut herbal; Richard Watson's five-volume Chemical Essays (1784-1787); Jane Haldimand's Conversations on Chemistry (1813), notable because this early nineteenth century textbook was written by a woman; and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order (1796).
Radical Pamphlets
The QEII general rare books collection houses The International Labour and Radical History Pamphlet Collection which consists of more than 2200 pamphlets, representing a broad spectrum of leftist opinion that includes communists of various stripes, socialists, liberal reformers, trade unionists, civil libertarians and antiwar activists. Published for the most part between the years 1920 and 1970 (the collection also includes a number of Fabian Society publications that predate this period), the majority of the pamphlets are English-language publications from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Canada and China. Among the topics and issues dealt with are socialist theory and practice, critiques of capitalism, war and peace, labour and the role of unions, international communism, the Vietnam War, racism and Third World liberation. The pamphlets may be found in many areas of the collection, particularly in Philosophy, History, the Social Sciences, Political Science, and Language and Literature.
Philosophy and Religion
The collection holds Philosophical texts and Religious texts published in many different languages, including English, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Latin, Cree, Gaelic (Irish), Inuktitut, Hopi, Zuni, and Greek. Notable titles in philosophy include the third edition of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1695). A rare first English translation (1758) of the works of Epictetus, All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant... Also a rare first edition of The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the First Part, Wherin, All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and its Impossibility Demonstrated (1678) by R. Cudworth. Notable titles in Religion include a Flemish Book of Hours manuscript from approximately 1500, illuminated by a woman artist, Cornelia Van Wulfschkerke. The collection also holds a first edition of the Bishops' Bible (1568) and a first London edition of Cotton Mather's Dr. Cotton Mather's Student and Preacher (1781). There is also a 1719 edition of the works of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux by Jean Mabillon. There are bibles in polyglot and also pictorial bibles. There are manuscripts and facsimile of manuscripts. The collection holds many ecclesiastical publications: lectures, sermons, bible studies, Sunday school works, breviaries, prayer books, as well as several large magazine runs, including the Canadian Methodist Magazine, Methodist Magazine, Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, and Methodist History.
History
Many of publications in this subject area focus on England, Ireland and Scotland, and include travel writing, county history, military and naval history and collections of political speeches. Notable titles include a 1774 first edition of John Campbell's A Political Survey of Britain: Being a Series of Reflections on the Situation, Lands, Inhabitants, Revenues, Colonies, and Commerce of this Island; Geoffrey Keating's 1723 The general history of Ireland... Michael Davitt's The Rise of the Irish Movement: an Address Delivered at the Opening Meeting in the Antient Concert Rooms, Dublin.... [1910]; the second edition of Bernard Scale's An Hibernian Atlas... (Improved, Corrected According to the Act of Union). 1809. And James Burney's Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. 1803-1817. Holdings also contain examples of early printed texts, e.g. Paul the Deacon's history of the Lombard family, Pauli Diaconi Ecclesiae Aquilegiensis Historiorgraphi Percelebris de Origine et Gestis Regum Langobar Doru Libri VI : Cum Indice et Argumentis. Venudãtur ab Joanne Paruo et Iodoco Badio Ascensio, published in 1514. There are also works on the history of France, Greece, Norway, Spain, India and Vietnam.
Spanning the eighteenth to the twentieth century, historical works covering the Americas are predominately English language, though there are also works in German, Italian, Swedish and French. There are histories of indigenous peoples; narratives of Indian captives; early travel narratives; US naval history; US local history, state, Wild West, prairie and wilderness histories. There are works by and about famous Canadians, as well as strong holdings in Canadian history focussing on British North America, military history, discovery, French Canadian history, the Fenians, the Hudson Bay Company, the Northwest Passage, Louis Riel, politics, and prime ministers. There are histories of Nova Scotia and other provincial histories. The collection also holds facsimiles of Mayan codices. Radical Pamphlets in this area relate to Cuba and the US civil rights movement. Notable titles include: Map of the French Settlements in North America, (1747) first printed in London Magazine and issued prior to Mitchell's map of North America; Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix's Journal of a Voyage to North-America (1761); William Smith's History of Canada; From its First Discovery, to the Year 1791, the first edition of the first English history of Canada (1815); the first American edition and volume two of the first British Edition of Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush; and a first edition of Catherine Parr Strickland-Traill's The Backwoods of Canada (1836). The collection also holds the 1937 limited edition facsimile of the Codice Borgia: Manuscript Pictorico Mexicano...
Access to the Collection
The QEII general rare books collection may be searched online by using the Memorial University Libraries' Catalogue (choose "advanced search and limit the "location" to "Rare" or "Rare-Oversize"). 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).
For more information about the collection, please contact librarian Patrick Warner at the QEII's Archives and Special Collections.
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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 |
February 22, 2011
