Rare Books and Special Collections - Bibliographies
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To see physical copies of items contained in the below collections, please contact special collections librarian, Patrick Warner.
The Roger and Marlene Peattie Collection
The Roger and Marlene Peattie Collection consists of over 4000 titles in the areas of Pre-Raphaelite literature and the Victorian illustrated book. The Collection came to the Memorial University Libraries as two deposits: an original donation in the year 2000 and a second donation in 2013 that added significantly to the original deposit, as well as adding a picture book collection, and a small collection of letters and documents written by the Pre-Raphaelites and their associates.
Titles donated in 2013 are not yet catalogue but are searchable through a number of bibliographies or shelf-lists.
Additions to the Pre-Raphaelite literature and the Victorian Illustrated books
The Roger and Marlene Peattie Picture Book Collection
The Roger and Marlene Peattie Collection MSS Letters & Documents
More Information about the Roger and Marlene Peattie Collection
The James Butrica Collection
Donated by the family of the late James Butrica, Classics professor at Memorial University, the collection comprises one-hundred-and-forty-three works published between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries and two boxes of archival materials. The collection strongly reflects professor Butrica's interest in the Roman elegiac poet Sextus Propertius, offering numerous Latin editions and English translations of the poet's work as well as scholarly works about Propertius and his poetry. There are also Latin and English translations of works by Tibullus, Catullus, Ovid, Virgil and others.
The Carnegie Art Collection — 1940's College Art Set
A college art set was donated to Memorial University College by the Carnegie Corporation during the 1940s. The set contains approximately 1,500 mounted photographs of architecture, sculpture and painting, all housed in a specially made wooden cabinet.
The David W. Freeman Collection
An eclectic collection of thirty-six primarily English language titles printed between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries and reflecting the donor's interest in the history of the book. The majority of the works in the David W. Freeman Collection are of English literature, including poetry, drama, epigrams and emblems, but there are also some ecceleastical titles and reference works related to book history and printing. The collection contains several scarce and valuable titles, including a first edition of William Cartwright's "Comedies, Tragi-Comedies with other poems," Humphrey Moseley, 1651; and Edward Larkin's "Speculum Patrum: A Looking-Glasse of the Fathers," Henry Eversden, 1659.
The Catherine Graham Collection
The Catherine Graham Collection contains one-hundred-and-eighty-nine printed works from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by and about Irish writers, including titles by William Allingham, Elizabeth Bowen, Oliver Gogarty, Lady Gregory, F.R. Higgins, Douglas Hyde, Patrick Kavanagh, J.B Yeats, W.B Yeats, Louis MacNeice, George Meredith, George Moore, Richard Murphy, Frank O' Connor, Kathleen Raine, G.M. Synge and Rabindranath Tagore. Approximately one third of the titles in the Catherine Graham Collection are Irish University Press reprints from the 1970s of Cuala Press titles, the press run by Elizabeth Yeats and W.B. Yeats between 1904 and 1946. The collection also contains original imprints from Cuala Press, both from its first run and from the 1970's when the Cuala Press was resurrected by W.B. Yeats' children, Michael and Anne Yeats, with Liam Miller. The collection also contains several scarce and valuable titles, including a signed first edition of Lady Gregory's "My First Play:" (Elkin Mathews and Marrot, 1930); and Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 1888:" (M.H. Gill and Son, 1888).
The Irving Layton Collection
Memorial University's Irving Layton Collection was purchased in 2010 from Canadian writer and critic John Metcalf. The Collection contains approximately 260 items, including every English Language edition of Layton's work, among them the important early editions from First Statement Press and Contact Press. Among the inscribed first editions and early editions are Here and Now (1945); Now is the Place (1948); The Black Huntsmen (1951); Cerberus (1952); Love the Conqueror Worm (1953); In the Midst of My Fever (1954); The Long Pea-Shooter (1954); The Blue Propeller (1955); The Cold Green Element (1955); Music on a Kazoo (1956); and The Bull Calf and Other Poems (1956). The Collection holds signed states and a number of extremely rare proofs, including those for Nail Polish (1971), The Pole-Vaulter (1974), as well as blue-line proofs for Dance With Desire: Selected Love Poem (1992). There are inscribed copies associated with many different writers, including William Carlos Williams, John Newlove, Raymond Souster, Frank Scott, Louis Dudek, Miriam Waddington and, of course, many works bearing the ownership signature of John Metcalf. Many of the books are warmly inscribed by the author to family members or friends. A couple even have on-the-spot sketches of the author in his own hand.
The Mullock Collection (Basilica Museum, St. John's)
The Mullock Collection is the only nineteenth-century book collection in Newfoundland and Labrador that survived in its original setting dating from 1856. Held by the Basilica Museum in St. John's, the library of Dr. John Thomas Mullock (1807-1869), Roman Catholic Bishop of Newfoundland and then St. John's, reflects its owner's wide-ranging learning and multilingual abilities. The Mullock Collection includes some 1300 books in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and other languages, published over four centuries, from the early sixteenth century to Mullock's death in 1869. Originally intended for public use, the Mullock Collection forms the nucleus of the current Episcopal Library. The attached catalogue contains books that bear Mullock's ownership mark and are housed respectively at the Basilica Museum and Memorial University's Queen Elizabeth II Library.
The Neil V. Rosenberg Collection
The Neil V. Rosenberg Collection consists of periodicals from the private library of Dr. Neil V. Rosenberg, Professor Emeritus of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The Collection focuses largely on bluegrass music periodicals and to a lesser extent on periodicals related to the country music from which bluegrass emerged and folksong revivals that embraced it. Please click on the link above to see a full list of titles and holdings.
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).
The Queen's College Collection: Rare and other non-circulating materials
The 3795 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. 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.
The Anne and Kevin Major Collection
Works produced by Canada's Locks' Press, England's Circle Press and The U.S.A.'s Janus Press make up the bulk of this collection of 42 fine press/artists' books donated by Anne and Kevin Major. The collection also holds a variety of works from other fine presses, including an edition of Aesop's Fables, Elizabethan love songs, as well as contemporary poetry by Michael Crummy, Anne Michaels, Kevin Major and Charles Simic. There are also books designed and made by Newfoundland-based artists Tara Bryan and Anita Singh.
Robert D. Denham's Richard Outram/Barbara Howard Collection
The one-hundred-and-thirty titles in the Robert D. Denham's Collection include books, broadsides and keepsakes produced by the Gauntlet Press, the private press established by Canadian poet Richard Outram and Canadian artist Barbara Howard. The Collection also holds trade editions of Outram's work as well as works by Richard Outram and Barbara Howard that do not bear the mark of the Gauntlet Press. Many of the items in the Collection are presentation copies, inscribed by Outram for Professor Robert D. Denham and his wife. The Collection also contains Gauntlet Press and other titles that were originally Barbara Howards's personal copies, several of which bear an inscription in Richard Outram's hand.
The Paul Smith Folklore Collection
Over 22,000 monographs, pamphlets and periodicals comprise the private collection of retired Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore Professor Dr. Paul Smith. The collection has concentrations in many subject areas, including foodways (1416 items), folk narrative (865 items), jokes and humour (667 items) and contemporary legend (450 items). The collection also contains an eclectic collection of scarce and unusual pamphlets (1272 items). There are works on such topics as Satanism, witchcraft and the supernatural, psychic investigation, ghosts, tattoos, crop circles, the Bermuda Triangle, monsters: werewolves, bigfoot and hairy bipeds, and Xerox lore, to name a few. The collection reflects Dr. Smith's research on contemporary legend, traditional drama, folklore as process, the marketing of traditions, folklore and popular literature, folklore and technology, computer application in folklore research, non-verbal traditions, folk custom, and food traditions.
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