RECENT ACQUISITIONS

AMERICAN HISTORY. Among volumes in early American history recently presented to the library in memory of Professor Winfred T. Root, who served as head of the history department at Iowa for 22 years, beginning in 1925, are the first American edition of Charles Botta’s History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America, 3 volumes (Philadelphia, 1820-21); Alexander Garden’s Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America (Charleston, 1822); Israel Mauduit’s Remarks Upon Gen. Howe’s Account of His Proceedings on Long-Island, second ed. (London, 1778); and William R. Staples’s The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee (Providence, 1845). Gift of Anne R. Prange.

ANATOMICAL ILLUSTRATION. Hermann Lebert’s Traité d’anatomie pathologique générale et speciale in four volumes (Paris, 1857-61) includes hundreds of examples of micro- and macroscopic anatomy and pathology. The detail, beauty, and accuracy of the 210 superb hand-colored copper engravings remind one how much more impressive medical illustration was 100 years ago than it is now. Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux (Paris, 1873), 4 volumes, by Jules Bernard Luys is a pioneering work in anatomical illustration. With photographs taken by Luys himself it depicts the brain from many angles and planes of section. He is particularly remembered for his work on the thalamus (the subthalamic nucleus of Luys), but most of his efforts were in clinical practice, one of his main interests being the integration of neuroanatomy with psychology. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

BECKETT, SAMUEL. Fifty-two copies of Company by Samuel Beckett were printed by hand by K. K. Merker and associates and published by the Iowa Center for the Book at The University of Iowa in 1985. The thirteen etchings were printed from the plates by artist Dellas Henke, the binding is by William Anthony, and the copies are signed by Samuel Beckett and Dellas Henke. Purchased on the Frank S. Hanlin Memorial Book Fund.

The initial publication, in 1984, of The New Overbrook Press of Stamford, Connecticut, was an edition of Samuel Beckett’s The Lost Ones illustrated with seven full-page intaglio prints by Charles Klabunde. Klabunde received his M.F.A. degree from The University of Iowa in 1962. The edition of 250 copies and 60 artist’s proofs was designed by Charles Altschul; the typeface is Eric Gill’s Gill Sans; and the work consists of eight unbound fascicles in a portfolio. The University of Iowa copy is number 56 of 60, signed by both Beckett and Klabunde.

BEWICK, THOMAS. Works by Thomas Bewick are found in several of this library’s rare book collections, including the Springer Collection of books on the history of printing, the Ranney Collection of books in the fine arts, and in our Edmund Blunden Collection. To the volumes of Bewick interest in our general rare book collection has been added a copy of a two-volume work entitled The Watercolours and Drawings of Thomas Bewick and His Workshop Apprentices, edited by Ian Bain (Cambridge, Mass., 1981). In these volumes the drawings are shown beside the engravings derived from them.

BLUNDEN, EDMUND. Manuscript items newly acquired for the Blunden Collection include a 30-page draft of an article, dating from 1921, entitled “Keats, Lamb, and Others” (see Kirkpatrick C265); a 2-leaf holograph poem, being a version of “The Author’s Last Words to his Students”; an interleaved and heavily annotated copy of an offprint article from a Japanese publication, Studies in English Literature (1931), entitled “Keats’s Letters” (Kirkpatrick A38); and four autograph letters from Blunden to Sir Herbert Grierson dating from the years 1938 and 1939.

BOOKBINDING. Of several recent volumes treating of bookbinding, mention may be made of Philip Smith’s The Book: Art & Object (1982), one of 230 copies printed in Merstham, England; The Mystique of Vellum (1984), with contributions by Decherd Turner, Colin Franklin, and Richard Bigus, one of 225 copies printed at Labyrinth Editions; My World of Bibliophile Binding (1984) by Kerstin Tini Miura; Jamie Kamph’s A Collector’s Guide to Bookbinding (1982), one of 250 copies printed at the Bird & Bull Press; and The Book Beautiful and the Binding as Art (1983), a catalog of livres d’artiste, with bibliographical descriptions by Peter A. Wick and photographs by Mark Sexton.

CLAMPITT, AMY. Three volumes of poetry by Amy Clampitt acquired for the Iowa Authors Collection are Homage to John Keats ( 1984), one of 250 letterpress copies from the Sarabande Press; What the Light Was Like (1984), an uncorrected proof copy of the Alfred A. Knopf edition; and Summer Solstice (1982), a folio volume on handmade paper from the Dieu Donné Papermill, printed at the Sarabande Press in an edition of only 33 copies. This latter volume is a gift of the Friends of the Library.

CLASSICS. Volumes which strengthen our significant holdings of sixteenth-century Greek editions (see Books at Iowa, no. 12) are an editio princeps of the first part of Polybius, Historiarum libri quinque (1530) with extensive early marginalia, from the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps; an editio princeps of Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis philosophorum (1533), a compendium preserving the lives, opinions, and apophthegms of the Greek philosophers, a copy from the Chatsworth Library; an editio princeps of the Discourses of Epictetus (1535), edited by Trincavelli, with numerous textual variants in Greek in a contemporary hand; and an editio princeps of the shorter critical works (1554) of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, edited by Henri Estienne.

DADA. Of numerous items newly added to our Dada Collection (see Books at Iowa, no. 39) the following will serve as samples: Jean Arp, Rire de coquille (Amsterdam, 1944); George Gross, Interregnum (Frankfurt am Main, 1976); Clement Pansaers, Le pan-pan au cul du nu negre (Bruxelles, 1920) and the same author’s Bar Nicamor (Bruxelles, 1921); and Benjamin Peret, Feu central (Paris, 1947).

DENTISTRY. Nouveau éléments complete de la science et de l’art du dentiste (Paris, 1843) by Malagou Antoine Desirabode is an exhaustive work covering diseases of the teeth, care of the gums, artificial dentures, orthopedic operations, and surgical tools. It also contains a historical review of dentistry from Hippocrates to 1843. The elegant red morocco binding on our copy bears the coat of arms of Otto, King of Greece, who was one of the author’s dental patients. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

DISCH, THOMAS M. Three additions to the Iowa Authors Collection of books by Tom Disch, a native of Des Moines, are Mankind Under the Leash (1966), an Ace double volume; The Business Man: A Tale of Terror (1984); and a volume of poetry, Here I Am... (1984), published in London and selected as a choice of the Poetry Book Society.

DONNE, JOHN. A rare first edition, first issue, of Poems (London, 1633) by John Donne has recently been given to the University Libraries in memory of William H. Damour (1906-1984), who was a University of Iowa graduate in the class of 1927. Gift of Mary Frances Damour.

ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY. Electrophysiology began with the experiments of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) in his studies of animal electricity. Working with him and carrying on his work was his nephew, Giovanni Aldini, whose Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism was published in London in 1803. Aldini extended his experiments to the bodies of freshly executed criminals, and detailed accounts are given of electrical stimulation of various parts of the bodies, including the severed heads, of several such fresh human subjects. The effect of stimulation of the freshly excised heart is the forerunner of the modem cardiac pacemaker. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

HOLMES, SHERLOCK. The Arion Press edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1985) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of 400 copies, illustrated with photographs made mostly on Dartmoor by Michael Kenna. “I found the reality of the moor,” says the photographer, “to be as Arthur Conan Doyle portrayed it: beautiful but bleak, and subject to volatile changes of mood and conditions—certainly an eerie and dangerous place by night.” The book was set in Baskerville type, with initial letters drawn by calligrapher Ward Dunham.

JEFFERSON, THOMAS. To this library’s collection of original letters written by presidents of the United States has been added a second letter from Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), this one written from Monticello in 1817, addressed to Philip S. Barziza. It concerns a request for Jefferson’s help regarding a petition to the House and Senate and also gives instructions for forwarding a book purchased at Jefferson’s request. Gift of Homer L. Calkin.

MAECENAS PRESS. A recent volume from the private press of Norman Sage at Lake Macbride, near Solon, Iowa, is Shannondale: An American Place (1984), a book of reminiscences by Maureen Cobb Mabbott concerning her early days on a farm in Missouri. This volume joins two books of poems by Mrs. Mabbott, both issued in recent years from the Maecenas Press, Bright Salvage (1980), one of 100 copies, and A Gravely Imagined Center (1981), one of 50 copies in cloth. Gift of Maureen Cobb Mabbott.

MEDICAL DICTIONARY. The first medical dictionary published in England was Steven Blankaart’s A Physical Dictionary (London, 1684), which proved immensely popular and remained in use for at least a hundred years. The author of this now uncommon book was a leading anatomist of his day and is remembered for his use of special injection techniques to study the vascular system. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

MITCHELL, S. WEIR. S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) is one of the true scholars in the history of American medicine. He was also a successful clinical physician and the author of several novels and books of poetry (see Books at Iowa, no. 39, for his relations with Walt Whitman). His book entitled Doctor and Patient (Philadelphia, 1888) was a volume for popular use, suggesting the manner in which a physician can help his patient who is under stress. He put great emphasis on rest for cure (Weir Mitchell rest cure), especially in nervous debility. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

O’HARA, JOHN MYERS. To our Iowa Authors Collection has been added a copy of Pagan Sonnets (1910) by J. M. O’Hara (1870-1944), one of 50 copies. Mr. O’Hara was a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a sometime Chicago lawyer, New York stockbroker, and owner of an extensive private library. His father had been one of the pioneer railroad builders of the West. For his translations of French verse Mr. O’Hara received a medal from the Academie Française. Lines from his poem “Atavism” were used by Jack London as the epigraph for The Call of the Wild.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN. Among numerous recent additions to the Mabbott-Poe Collection are a German version of the poems, Gedichte (1909), translated by Georg Müller; French translations by Charles Baudelaire, Aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym (1981) and Eureka (1981); a copy of The James Carling Illustrations of . . . The Raven (1982) with an essay on the writing of “The Raven” by Thomas Ollive Mabbott; the Cheloniidae Press publication of The Black Cat (1984), one of 250 copies printed at Hampshire Typothetae, with eleven wood engravings by Alan James Robinson; a bilingual edition of “The Raven” (1979) in English and Catalan, with colored illustrations numbered and signed by Miguel Plana, one of 44 copies; a printing of Eleonora (1979) with an introduction by Richard Wilbur and a wood engraving by Fritz Eichenberg, one of 264 copies produced for the Print Club of Cleveland; a miniature edition of Two Poems (i.e., “To Helen” and “Annabel Lee”), one of 100 copies handprinted in Utrecht at The Catharijne Press in 1984; and a striking folio volume printed on blue paper, a publication from Milan, Italy, entitled Alberto Martini illustatore di Edgar Allan Poe (1984) by Marco Lorandi. Acquired on the Mabbott-Poe Fund.

PSYCHOLOGY. A rare work by a Renaissance humanist, De anima et vita libri III by Jean Luis Vives (1492-1540) was published at Basel in 1538. Vives, born in Valencia, later studied in Paris and taught at the University of Louvain. He was invited to lecture in the humanities at Oxford, where he knew other great humanists such as Thomas More and Thomas Linacre. He was the formulator of some early and basic principles in what is now called psychology. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

ROOSEVELT BEARS. A seventh volume added to our series of early twentieth-century children’s stories in verse by Seymour Eaton (see Books at Iowa, no. 20) is The Roosevelt Bears Abroad (1908). This is a large volume of 178 pages with illustrations, some in color, by R. K. Culver. It continues the adventures of Teddy-B and Teddy-G begun by Eaton in 1906 as a very successful venture in storytelling for children.

ROXBURGHE CLUB. Two additions to this library’s collection of the publications of the Roxburghe Club (see Books at Iowa, no. 35) are Heraldo Memoriale, or Memoirs of the College of Arms from 1727 to 1744 (1981) by Stephen Martin Leake, and Aspects of French Eighteenth Century Typography (1982) by John Dreyfus. The Heraldo Memoriale is based on manuscript journals in the College of Arms and is edited by Anthony Richard Wagner. Aspects is a study of type specimens in the Broxboume Collection at Cambridge University Library.

SCYLLACIUS, NICOLAUS. A rare work which contains the first epidemiological report of syphilis known to medical historians, the Opuscula (Pavia, 1496) of Nicolaus Scyllacius provides evidence that syphilis was known in Europe and not brought back from the New World by Columbus’s sailors in 1493. Gift of John Martin, M.D.

SHAKESPEARE. The Circle Press edition of Macbeth (1970), one of 150 letterpress copies on Barcham Green mould-made paper, is a folio of unbound fascicles featuring ten full-page original screen images by the artist Ronald King. Purchased on the William J. and Lucile Jones Paff Fund.

SHIEL, M. P. The Rajah’s Sapphire (1896) is said to be the most seldom seen of Shiel first editions. Our recently acquired copy is the second issue of the first edition, with the endpapers printed in blue. A newly accessioned copy of Unto the Third Generation (1903) bears on its front endpaper an author’s inscription which states, in part, that “the ‘artist-model’ is, for the father . . . Pope Alexander VI, and, for the son, Caesar Borgia . . .

STEGNER, WALLACE. Four London editions of books by Wallace Stegner not previously represented in our Iowa Authors Collection are Remembering Laughter (Heinemann, 1937), The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Hammond, 1950), Second Growth (Hammond, 1948), and The City of the Living (Hammond, 1957). Also of Stegner interest is a new edition of John Steinbeck’s story Flight with a ten-page “Afterword” by Wallace Stegner. This is one of 260 copies printed at the Yolla Bolly Press in 1984 with illustrations by Karin Wikström printed direct from the blocks over lithographed color.

SURGERY. Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov, author of Klinische Chirurgie, 3 volumes (Leipzig, 1854), is regarded as the greatest Russian surgeon of the nineteenth century. He is particularly well known for his osteoplastic operation for amputation of the foot. During the Crimean War he introduced female nursing of the wounded, and he was a strong advocate of higher education for women. Gift of Sara (Conn) and Harold Lincoln Thompson in memory of James Emmett Conn, M.D.

TAMAZUNCHALE PRESS. Four recently published miniature books from the Tamazunchale Press of Newton, Iowa, are Confessions of a Wild Bore (1984) by John Updike, one of 250 copies printed in Holland and bound in France in full leather with Cockerell endpapers; My Favorite Miniature Book: Nine Essays by Collectors of Miniature Books (1984); A Hollander Garland (1985) by John Hollander, printed and bound at the Tabula Rasa Press; and The Geese by E. B. White, one of 250 numbered copies bound in France in goose-gray leather.

TORCH PRESS. A copy of Savage, the Rake; Chatterton, the Precocious Youth: Two Eighteenth Century Character Sketches (1905) by William Harvey Miner is one of 15 copies printed on Japan Vellum, a presentation volume from the author to Willis Vickery bearing Vickery’s leather bookplate; Books Beautiful: A Collection of Unusual Items (1912) is a catalog from the Torch Press Book Shop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with annotations by William Harvey Miner; George Washington, Citizen and Farmer (1932) is an address by J. Christian Bay, one of 75 copies; and J. Winfred Spenceley: His Etchings and Engravings in the Form of Book Plates (1910) is a privately issued volume. This copy, bearing the bookplate of the compiler, Joseph Manuel Andreini, is in a full red morocco Doves Press binding by Charles McLeisch, a gift of Mike Maddigan.

TRAVEL. Drei Jahre in Amerika, 1859-1862 (1862) by Israel J. Benjamin is a rare account by a Jewish scholar of his three years’ journey within America. A good part of his time, says Wagner-Camp, “was spent in the eastern United States, investigating the history and condition of Jews in North America. He came to the San Francisco area via Panama and then to the Pacific Northwest. He returned overland in 1861 by way of Salt Lake.” The Iowa copy is from the library of Thomas W. Streeter. Reise. . . durch Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1825 und 1826 (1828) by Karl Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, contains “rather flattering remarks about the Midwest. He ascended the Mississippi to St. Louis and proceeded by river to New Harmony” (Hubach). Purchased on the Thompson Travel Fund.

VAN VECHTEN, CARL. Among new items relating to Iowa author Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) are eighteen letters or cards from Van Vechten to Doris Julian, dating mostly from the 1950s; 23 Van Vechten photographs of Doris Julian, Stephen Van Ophingsen, Coleman Dowell, and Jose Quintero; and a printed broadside, “My Favourite Authors” by Van Vechten, one of 26 copies, which comes to us as a gift of Bruce Kellner.