Recent Acquisitions

BENNOCH, FRANCIS. Francis Bennoch (1812-1890) was a successful businessman, politician, traveler, patron of many nineteenth-century British authors, poet, and close friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Our recently acquired collection of 500 letters addressed to Bennoch is indicative of the period and of his philanthropic importance. Among his correspondents are William and Mary Howitt, William Jerdan, Bayard Taylor, Anna Maria Hall, Letitia Landon, Samuel Rogers, Julia Pardoe, and Mary Russell Mitford. An extra-illustrated volume of verse by Bennoch, Sir Ralph de Rayne and Lillian Grey (1870), has also been acquired.

BLACK SUN PRESS. Among the authors whose works have been printed by the Black Sun Press are Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Eugène Jolas, James Joyce, Archibald MacLeish, and Ezra Pound. Our latest acquisition from this press is a small volume entitled Collected Poems of James Joyce, one of 800 numbered copies printed in 1936.

BLAKE, WILLIAM. Among the additions to our resources on William Blake are a French edition, Le Mariage du ciel et de l’enfer (Paris, 1923), translated by André Gide; the Trianon Press edition (1976) of The Book of Los, reproduced from the unique copy in the British Museum; the 1863 edition of Alexander Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, 2 volumes, in the original gilt pictorial bindings; a copy of William Hayley’s The Triumphs of Temper (1803) for which Blake engraved six illustrations; and The Wood Engravings of William Blake for Thornton's Virgil, 1821, one of 150 sets of impressions from Blake’s original wood blocks.

BLIGH, WILLIAM. In 1972, along with many other items, the late L. O. Cheever gave this Library a collection of two dozen volumes relating to William Bligh and the mutiny on the ship Bounty. These books include a fine uncut copy of the first edition of William Bligh’s A Narrative of the Mutiny on Board His Majesty’s Ship Bounty (1790) as well as the Golden Cockerel Press editions of The Journal of James Morrison (1935) and The Log of the Bounty (1937). A recent addition to our Bountyana is a facsimile of The Log of H.M.S. Bounty, 1787-1789, which reproduces the original manuscript now in the Public Record Office, London. It is one of 500 copies published in England in 1975 by Genesis Publications. And from the same publisher comes The Log of H.M.S. Providence, 1791-1793 by Captain W. Bligh, which is a record of Bligh’s second and successful breadfruit voyage. It is one of 500 copies published in 1976.

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI. An autograph manuscript of Boccaccio’s Decameron (Codex Hamilton 90) presently owned by the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, West Berlin, has been made available by Fratelli Alinari of Florence in a facsimile edition of 325 copies printed in Verona by Stamperia Valdonega. Ours is copy 178.

CAMPANELLA, TOMASSO. Discorsi della monarchia di Spagnia is a treatise on the Spanish political system written by the author of the utopian City of the Sun. Our manuscript of 169 unnumbered leaves apparently dates from the late seventeenth century and gives the original text in Italian. This manuscript was once owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps.

CLARENDON. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702-1704) by Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, has been called “the noblest example of formal historical writing” of its period. Its coverage spans the stormy years between Charles the First and the Restoration in 1660. Our three folio volumes, printed at Oxford, constitute the first edition.

DANTE. The Brescia Dante (Provo, Utah, 1975) is a leaf-book issued in 250 copies by the Friends of Brigham Young University Library. It contains, in addition to an original leaf from the 1487 Brescia edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia, a three-part essay on Dante by Philip J. Spartano and an essay on the printer, Boninus de Boninis, by Chad J. Flake.

GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS. Acquisitions of books from the Golden Cockerel Press include The Fables of Aesop (1926), one of 350 copies, with wood-engravings by Celia M. Fiennes; Utopia (1929) by Sir Thomas More, with decorations by Eric Gill, one of 500 numbered copies; Napoleon's Memoirs (1945), 2 vols., edited by Somerset de Chair, one of 500 copies; The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (1948), in a translation by F. L. Lucas, with ten engravings by Mark Severin; and Jurgen: a Comedy of Justice (1949) by James Branch Cabell, with 16 engravings by John Buckland-Wright, one of 500 numbered copies.

GREGYNOG PRESS. John Milton’s On the Morning of Christs Nativity was printed as a Christmas greeting by the Gregynog Press of Newton, Montgomeryshire, Wales, in an edition of 250 copies in December of 1937. The volume is embellished with a full-page wood engraving by Alison McKenzie. Cyrupaedia: The Institution and Life of Cyrus is a small folio volume which reprints the text of Xenophon in the English translation of Philemon Holland. Its floriated woodcut initials were designed by Loyd Haberly, who also directed the printing and designed the binding. One hundred and fifty copies were printed in 1936. Loyd Haberly, a native of Ellsworth, Iowa, was director of the Gregynog Press from 1934 to 1936.

HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER VON. Between the years 1799 and 1804 Alexander von Humboldt and his companion Aimé Bonpland traveled extensively in South and Central America and in Mexico. The editing of his account of his American travels and scientific discoveries occupied Humboldt for 20 years. The work was published in Paris in 30 volumes between 1805 and 1834 under the title Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland; voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent. Our copy is one of 200 sets recently reprinted in the Netherlands, and it is supplemented with a uniformly bound nine-volume set of Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, in the English translation by Helen Maria Williams.

HUNT, LEIGH. Autograph letters by Leigh Hunt appear less frequently now than in times past, but of late we have acquired for the Brewer—Leigh Hunt Collection a two-page note from Hunt to Anne Procter, a one-page note to William Jerdan, and a two-page letter to Arthur Brooke, written in 1833, concerning the actor Arthur Gliddon. Of great interest is Leigh Hunt’s copy of Joseph Spence’s Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (London, 1820), with Hunt’s marginal annotations.

INCUNABULA. Epistolate diversorum Philosophorum, Oratorum, Rhetorum XXVI (1499) is a collection of the letters of 26 classical and early Christian figures, among them Brutus the Roman, Phalaris the Tyrant, Libanius the Sophist, Chion the Platonist, Julian the Apostate, and St. Basil. The letters of Plato are present here in the editio princeps. The volume was edited by Marcus Musurus, professor of Greek at Padua University, and the printing was done by Aldus Manutius in his second Greek type. Practica valesci de tharanta que alias philonium dicitur by Valescus de Taranta was published in Lyons in 1490. It is a text of general medicine by a one-time physician to King Charles VI of France. The book is rare, and the works of early Portuguese medical scientists are not often found. This latter volume is a gift of John Martin, M.D.

JENNER, EDWARD. Jenner’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (London, 1798) is an epochal work which marks the beginning of modem scientific immunization. It presents 23 case histories illustrating the methods, effects and successful results of Jenner’s vaccinations. The four colored plates are among the most famous illustrations in medical history. With our copy is bound Jenner’s Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae, or Cow Pox (London, 1799). Gift of John Martin, M.D.

KELMSCOTT PRESS. William Morris’s two-volume set of The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye was published in an edition of 300 copies in 1892. Maud, a Monodrama, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, was printed by Morris at his Kelmscott Press in 1893. The Friendship of Amis and Amile is a translation by Morris from the French, printed in 1894. Syr Perceyvelle of Gales was issued by the press in February, 1895, and Poems Chosen Out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge appeared in 1896.

LANDON, LETITIA. A contributor of popular poetry to the English annuals of the day, Letitia Landon (1802-1838) is also remembered for the mystery surrounding her sudden death in Africa. To our previous collection of two dozen or more letters and half a dozen poetic manuscripts we have recently added 16 letters. Among her correspondents are Mrs. S. C. Hall, William Jerdan, and Alaric Watts. The Improvisatrice and Other Poems by L. E. L. (London, 1824) is a recently acquired first edition by “Lettie” Landon.

MALPIGHI. The researches of Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) covered comparative and human anatomy and physiology, embryology, histology, and plant morphology. His Dissertatio epistolica de formatione pulli in ovo (London, 1673) definitely states the stages of vertebrate embryonic development, and it is illustrated by plates showing the development of such fine structures as the optic vesicles, the neural grooves, and the aortic arches. With our copy is bound a second edition of Malpighi’s Dissertatio epistolica de Bombyce (London, 1673), a remarkable monograph on the silkworm which remains one of the great original works in entomology. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL. Mary Mitford (1787-1855) is represented in our manuscript collection by 30 autograph letters and 5 poems. To our rare books collection we have now added a first edition of her Belford Regis; or Sketches of a Country Town (1835), in three volumes.

MORGAN, J. PIERPONT. Illustrated catalogs of art objects collected by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) relate to Miniatures (4 vols., London, 1906-08), Renaissance Tapestries (Paris, 1913), Jewels and Precious Works of Art (London, 1910), Antique Greek and Roman Bronzes (Paris, 1913), and Bronzes of the Renaissance and Subsequent Periods (2 vols., Paris, 1910). All were issued in editions limited to 150 copies.

PENUMBRA PRESS. Three recent volumes from the Penumbra Press of Lisbon, Iowa, are Norman Dubie’s The Prayers of the North American Martyrs (1975), one of 250 copies handprinted from Palatino and Optima types; Dear Anyone (1976), poems by Williams Keens, one of 200 copies; and Anxiety and Ashes (1976), poems by Laura Jensen, one of 250 copies handprinted from Centaur types, with an illustration from an intaglio print by Frances Lerner.

PLASTIC SURGERY. Il Tesoro della Vita Humana (Venice, 1570) by Leonardo Fioravanti is important for making one of the earliest references to plastic surgery. This rare book is written mainly in the form of letters to Fioravanti’s colleagues. Gaspar Tagliacozzi’s De Curtorum Chirurgia (Venice, 1597) created a furor at the time of its publication, but it remains a medical landmark, by the first modern plastic surgeon. Gifts of John Martin, M.D.

REPTON, HUMPHRY. A landscape gardener of great repute, Humphry Repton (1752-1818) typically prepared books of plans and paintings for the estates that he designed. Some 150 of his so-called Red Books still survive. Facsimile reproductions of Repton’s plans for three estates—Sheringham in Norfolk, Anthony House in Cornwall, and Attingham Park in Shropshire —are made available in The Red Books of Humphry Repton, published in London by the Basilisk Press in 1976, with a volume of commentary by Edward Malins.

ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL. Rossetti’s 11-page letter of April 10, 1876, addressed to the dramatist John Westland Marston (1819-1890), is devoted to detailed and appreciative comments on four of Marston’s plays—Strathmore, The Patricians Daughter, Marie de Méranie, and Anne Blake.

ROXBURGHE CLUB. Additions to the publications of the Roxburghe Club are The Holkham Library: Illuminations and Illustrations in the Manuscript Library of the Earl of Leicester (1970); A Description of Maps and Architectural Drawings in the Collection made by William Cecil, First Baron Burghley, now at Hatfield House (1971); John Scottowe’s Alphabet Books (1974); and The Madresfield Hours: A Fourteenth-Century Manuscript in the Library of Earl Beauchamp (1975).

TORCH PRESS. Recent additions to our holdings of books printed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by the Torch Press are Alfred Fowler’s Bookplates for Beginners (1922), one of 500 copies; J. Winfred Spenceley, His Etchings and Engravings in the Form of Book Plates (1910) by Joseph Andreini, one of 100 copies; Lucius Hubbard’s Contributions Towards a Bibliography of Gulliver’s Travels (1922), one of 200 copies; Ambrose Bierce (1920) by Vincent Starrett, one of 250 copies; Frederick Starr’s Japanese Collectors and What They Collect (1921), one of 750 copies; Report of the Public Dinner Given to Charles Dickens at the Waterloo Rooms, Edinburgh, on Friday, June 25, 1841 (1915), one of 63 copies; and The End of the Play (1915), by William Makepeace Thackeray, one of 200 copies.

TRUXTUN, THOMAS. Commodore Thomas Truxtun (1755-1822) was one of the founders of the U.S. Navy and a popular hero of the war of 1798-1800 between the United States and France. “His most important and permanent legacy to the United States Navy,” says his biographer, “is the quiet and untheatrical tradition of command that he established.” In 1802 Truxtun was eased out of the Navy by the then Secretary, Robert Smith. Our recently acquired eight-page letter from Truxtun to Secretary Smith is dated December 25, 1803, and touches on various matters of command.

VESALIUS. In 1543 Andreas Vesalius published an Epitome of his great work, the Fabrica, intending it to be a student’s working manual. The two plates at the end contain figures which were meant to be cut out, if the student so desired, and pasted leaf-like on the preceding main figures. Because it was used by students and many copies were doubtless cut up, this important item of Vesaliana is now a rare treasure. The first edition of De humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome (Basel, 1543) acquired for our History of Medicine Collection is a gift of John Martin, M.D.

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM. Wordsworth’s letter of November 25, 1835, addressed from Rydal Mount to Alaric Watts, is not included in the De Selincourt edition (1939) of The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. It runs to two and a half pages and concerns the relationship between the two men.