Recent Acquisitions

ANATOMY. The most spectacular book in the University Libraries is with little doubt the recently acquired Anatomia Universa by the Italian anatomist Paolo Mascagni (1752-1815). This immense portfolio consists of 44 splendid hand-colored plates, with an additional 44 matching outline plates in black and white. Three of these plates placed together represent a life-size human body, six feet tall. Our copy is in pristine condition, having been in the possession of the same Roman family since its publication in the 1820s. A magnificent fusion of art and anatomy, the Mascagni folio is unique in medical literature, and our copy is one of only three or four known copies in the United States. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

AUSTEN, JANE. Appearing for the first time in 1981, Jane Austen’s only known play, Sir Charles Grandison, or the Happy Man, is a burlesque of Samuel Richardson’s novel of the same name. This three-volume set contains a foreword by David Cecil, a facsimile of the original manuscript, and a clear text of the comedy itself, edited by Brian Southam. Of 250 copies published in England by Jubilee Books, ours is number 38.

BIRD & BULL PRESS. Four acquisitions printed at the press of Henry Morris of North Hills, Pennsylvania, are Practical Remarks on Modern Paper (1981), a reprint of a work written by John Murray in 1829; Private Presses of San Seriffe (1980), a spoof of private presses; a reprint of Henry Simpson’s 1848 work entitled The Emigrant’s Guide to the Gold Mines (1978); and Twenty-one Years of Bird & Bull: A Bibliography, 1958-1979 (1980), an interesting history of the press by its proprietor.

BLAKE, WILLIAM. Trianon Press published Geoffrey Keynes’s A Study of the Illuminated Books of William Blake (1964), using paper specially manufactured to match the tint of paper used by Blake. The 59 color plates reveal the evolution of Blake’s style and are prefaced with biographical information and a discussion of the artist’s techniques and accomplishments.

BLUNDEN, EDMUND. Over 100 letters from Edmund Blunden to such correspondents as Neville Rogers, A. F. Pollard, and Dicken Moore have been accessioned for the Blunden Collection. In addition, 15 pamphlets with essays or poems by Blunden, most of them signed presentation copies to fellow writer Siegfried Sassoon, have been acquired with the help of the Friends of the Library.

COOK, CAPTAIN JAMES. The Journal of H.M.S. Resolution, 1772-1775 (1980) records Cook’s circumnavigation of Antarctica on his second voyage. This facsimile of the original manuscript provides extensive background information on the scientists and artist who accompanied him. Published by Genesis Publications, the volume complements an earlier acquisition, The Journal of H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768-1771 (1977).

DERRYDALE PRESS. Sporting books published between 1926 and 1941 by Eugene V. Connett’s Derrydale Press are described in The Derrydale Press: A Bibliography (1981) by Colonel Henry A. Siegel and others. Our copy is number 113 of 1,250 numbered copies printed by the Stinehour Press.

DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE. A lavish new edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1982 by the Pennyroyal Press. Known as the “Pennyroyal Alice,” it contains 75 wood engravings by Barry Moser which provide a rich complement to this classic text. Of 350 copies, the library’s is number 100.

GAWSWORTH, JOHN. Two volumes by John Gawsworth recently added are his study of Wyndham Lewis, Apes, Japes and Hitlerism (1932) and Ten Contemporaries, second series (1933), which provides essays and bibliographies on such writers as John Collier, Liam O’Flaherty, Stella Benson, Oliver Onions, Dorothy Richardson, and others. Also acquired are 17 letters from Oliver Onions to Gawsworth.

HITLER, ADOLF. A copy of Hans Eibl’s Von Sinn der Gegenwart: Ein Buch von deutscher Sendung, which deals with the inequities of the Versailles treaty, was found in Hitler’s bedroom at bombed-out Berchtesgaden. This copy, bearing Hitler’s bookplate, has been presented to the library anonymously.

HUNT, LEIGH. Ten manuscript letters from Hunt to such recipients as Thomas Powell, Charles Ollier, and J. R. Planché have recently been acquired for the Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection, with assistance from the Friends of the Library.

IOWA AUTHORS. Manuscripts received for the Iowa Authors Collection include typescript and galley proofs of Mr. Kipling’s Army (1981) by Byron Farwell, who is a native of Manchester, Iowa, and manuscripts of four recent books by Nancy Veglahn, a native of Sioux City. From Marquis Childs has been received a typescript version of a revision of his book Sweden, The Middle Way, which was first published in 1936. Drafts of several short stories have been received from Dubuque native Karlton Kelm, and among uncorrected proof copies acquired are those for Wallace Stegner’s One Way to Spell Man (1982) and for David Rabe’s Streamers, a play which won an award as the best American play in 1976.

JAPANESE PRINTS. Surimono are woodblock prints accomplished by the heavy rubbing of an elbow. Intended as gifts, they often incorporate poems into their pictures. Reproductions of such prints, along with biographies of artists and translations of poems, are found in Surimono: Prints by Elbow (1980), a gift from the Iowa-Des Moines National Bank.

LEAF BOOK. A leaf from the letters of St. Jerome, Epistolae Hironymi (Rome, 1466-1467), first printed by Sixtus Reissinger, is presented with historical and bibliographical essays in A Leaf From the Letters of St. Jerome (1981), published by Zeitlin & Ver Brugge in an edition of 300 copies. Ours is number 65.

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. Walt Whitman’s Memories of President Lincoln and Other Lyrics (1904) is a volume printed by Thomas Mosher in Portland, Maine. James Mellon’s The Face of Lincoln (1979) beautifully reproduces original photographs, and The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (1982) is a fine compendium of information and illustration concerning Lincoln’s times, his views, and his contemporaries.

MICHELANGELO. Working on a scaffolding that brought him to within six feet of the marvelous frescoes painted by Michelangelo on the lofty ceilings of the Sistine and Pauline chapels, Takashi Okamuri photographed these paintings with extraordinary fidelity. The Vatican Frescoes of Michelangelo (1980) published by the Abbeville Press makes these prints available in an impressive four-volume set which contains 360 color plates, 49 of them being double-page spreads. Ours is number 341 of the 600 copies produced.

MINING. The Herbert Clark Hoover Collection of Mining & Metallurgy (1980) is a catalog of more than 900 volumes collected by Mr. Hoover and his wife in the course of the work they did in translating from the Latin and annotating Agricola’s De Re Metallica, a sixteenth-century classic work on mining. The collection is now preserved in the Honnold Library of the Claremont Colleges, and the published catalog is one of 500 copies printed at the Arion Press in San Francisco.

MURDOCH, IRIS. Uncorrected proof copies of The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) and of An Accidental Man (1972) have been added to our collection of the writings of Iris Murdoch. Also acquired is a holograph draft of an article entitled “The Idea of Perfection.”

NONESUCH PRESS. Focusing on Francis Meynell, creator and director of the press, John Dreyfus traces, in A History of the Nonesuch Press (1981), its development from inception in the 1920s to its close in the 1970s. Good illustrations accompany a lengthy descriptive catalog of this well-known British press.

ORNITHOLOGY. The Audubon Society’s baby elephant folio edition of Audubon’s Birds of America (1981), published by the Abbeville Press, for the first time presents the birds in phylogenetic order. The colorful plates are accompanied by commentaries that often include Audubon’s own notes and descriptions.

PARIS IMPRINT. To our collection of early twentieth-century English-language books printed in Paris has been added a copy of William Van Wyck’s Some Gentlemen of the Renaissance (1928), copy number 77 of 250 copies printed by Edward W. Titus at the sign of the Black Manikin.

POE. Among seven new titles in the Mabbott-Poe Collection is a series of three Poe stories translated into French by Baudelaire with lithographs by Maurice Berdon. Two others are variant editions of “The Cask of Amontillado,” one of them a miniature book published in 1981 by the Amaranth Press. Le Corbeau (1980) is a translation of “The Raven” issued by Editions Tallone, and The Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales (1932) is a striking volume with wood engravings by J. Buckland Wright, our copy being number 71 of 206 copies printed in Holland by the Halcyon Press and purchased on the Mabbott Fund.

THE PRESS AT COLORADO COLLEGE. Sappho Poems (1980) presents the verses of Sappho in a translation by Diane Rayor, with illustrations by Janet Steinmetz, in an edition limited to 150 copies. Seven Characters (1980) collects short stories by seven authors. Our copy is number 44 of 75 copies designed, printed, and bound by James Trissel.

ROXBURGHE CLUB. A facsimile edition (1980) of a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript, The Mirroure of the Worlde, is a Middle English version of a French collection of moral treatises. This edition, one of 200 copies printed for the Roxburghe Club, is a gift from the Friends of the Library.

SHIEL, M. P. Two novels recently acquired are Shiel’s The Last Miracle (1906), in black binding with orange lettering, the first English edition, and Cold Steel (1929), a swashbuckling tale set in the time of Henry VIII, the American Vanguard Press edition in the original dust jacket. Also added is a copy of the first American edition of An American Emperor (1897) by Louis Tracy, for which Shiel wrote chapters 29 through 39.

TRAVEL. Saint-Petersbourg et la Russie en 1829, a two-volume set by J. B. May, was published in Paris between 1829 and 1830. Noa-Noa, Voyage de Tahiti (1926) is a beautiful color facsimile of Paul Gauguin’s original manuscript which combines watercolors, woodcuts, and photographs to form his scenes of Tahitian life. Purchased on the Thompson Fund.

TYPOGRAPHY. Three newly acquired volumes augment our holdings of books about printing. The American Hand Press (1980) combines text and illustration to examine the development of various hand presses. Ours is number 74 of 300 copies printed at the Curt Zoller Press. Janson: A Definitive Collection (1954) provides a brief history and lengthy specimen sheet of the types developed by Anton Janson in the late 1600s. Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms in Manuscript and Print (1980) is a compilation of the major essays of master typographer Stanley Morrison.

WILSON, ANGUS. Three manuscript letters and the manuscript of a short story, “The Eyes of the Peacock,” which relates to Wilson’s Setting the World on Fire (1980), have been acquired, along with an advance proof copy of this recent novel.

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM. My Dearest Love: Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth, 1810 (1981), published by the Scolar Press in an edition of 300 copies, presents in facsimile and transcription the only known love letters between Wordsworth and his wife. Ours is copy 52 of 300 copies.