BOOKS AT BROWN

VOL. III, N0.3 MARCH, 1941

PUBLISHED BY THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Latin American Books at Brown OFFICERS

HONORARY CHAIRMEN: Henry B. Van Hoesen Librarian of Brown University CHAIRMAN: Carleton D. Morse, Boston

V ICE-CHAIRMEN W. Easton Louttit, Jr., Providence Albert E. Lownes, Providence Louis I. Newman, New York Frederick S. Peck, Barrington Clarence H . Philbrick, Providence

SECRETARY & TREASURER: George 1. Miner John Hay Library, Providence, R. 1.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE OF 1940-41 John B. Archer, Providence J. J. Bodell, Providence Clarence S. Brigham, Worcester Francis H . Chafee, Providence James C. Collins, Providence Robert Cushman, Boston Walter A. Edwards, Providence Royal B. Farnum, Providence John A. French, Washington Clarence 1. Hay, New York Walter Hoving, New York Charles Evans Hughes, Washington Clinton P. Knight, Jr., Providence George T. Marsh, Providence Frank Mauran, Jr., Providence Edwin B. Mayer, Chicago Jesse H . Metcalf, Providence William Davis Miller, Wakefield John S. Murdock, Providence Paul C. Nicholson, Providence Albert H . Poland, Providence William G. Roelker, Providence Arthur H . Ruggles, Providence Clarence E. Sherman, Providence Charles F. Stearns, Providence Homer N. Sweet, Boston John T. Winterich, New York W. Chesley Worthington, Providence

EDITOR, BOOKS AT BROWN: Albert E. Lownes BOOKS AT BROWN is glad to devote this issue to Latin Americana. A new discipline in the University's curriculum gives us a timely-oppor­ tunity to point with pride to some of Brown's choicest treasures and to call attention to one conspicuous weakness .

LATIN AMERICAN BOOKS AT BROWN One of the pleasant surprises that awaits the newcomer to the Brown campus is the unexpected strength, both actual and poten­ tial, of its library resources in various fields of cultural and scien­ tific investigation. This wealth of material seems at first blush almost out of proportion to the size and physical equipment of the institution. Further acquaintance with Brown University brings the gratifying discovery that the basic source materials of some disciplines are not only equal to those of academic neighbors but, in some instances, even exceed them. The preeminence of Brown's mathematical library, for example, is widely acknowledged while the extraordinary richness of the Harris Collection and of the Lincoln Collection easily/lace Brown in the top rank in their fields. In yet another broa area of study are the resources of that campus so remarkable as to class it as one of the potentially out­ standing centers of research in this country and even in the western hemisphere. The reference is, of course, to the truly exceptional collections of printed Americana up through the year I800 in the John Carter Brown Library, and the John Hay Library's general strength in American history and literature - taking the term American in its broadest sense to include the southern as well as the northern continent - together with special collections of poetry (the Harris Collection) and of books on Central and South America (the George Earl Church Collection). All told, the pic­ ture of Brown's resources for Latin American studies, particularly the cultural aspects of the history and life of Hispanic America is impressive and genuinely promising. It would seem, therefore, eminently wise to build on the undeniable strength that Brown University already has and, by increasing these resources in this special field, place this institution, as is being done so impressively in Mathematics, in the forefront of North American centers of research. Let us examine briefly the materials at hand. The John Carter Brown Library First and foremost of these collections is,the one housed in the John Carter Brown Library whose unique distinction, particularly in colonial books printed before 1801, is recognized by scholars throughout the entire western hemisphere. Within the period indicated there are nearly 5000 titles of works of direct and specific Latin American interest; if more general histories, travels and col­ lections of English and French political pamphlets, all bearing in varying degrees upon things Hispanic American, are included, the total number of books in the general field rises to about IO,OOO. Limiting the discussion, however, to a consideration of the approximately 5000 titles directly Latin American in content, there are 2.843 in the Spanish language and about 2.000 in other languages. The works of the first group issuing from the colonial presses of Hispanic America are, as a rule, more important as source materials on the cultural history of that period so that a break­ down of the figure given is of interest. Books printed in Spain Books printed in Mexico City and Puebla de los Angeles Books printed in Peru Books printed elsewhere in Central and South America 43 It is difficult, of course, to establish a correct ratio of these fig­ ures to the whole output of the Mexican and Peruvian presses, the first and chief ones in colonial Spanish America, as discoveries of new items still continue. Some useful calculations may be made, however, on the basis of bibliographies compiled by a remarkable Chilean scholar, Jose Toribio Medina, and these indicate that the John Carter Brown Library possesses 18% of all Peruvian imprints up to 1801 and about IO% of the Mexican. Judged quantitatively, these figures may not seem impressive, but it should be remembered that the distinction that the John Carter Brown Library enjoys among scholars everywhere comes from the fact that the acquisi­ tions of Latin American imprints have been highly selective: The value of these percentages is further enhanced when it is recalled that the bulk of the production of colonial presses in the southern parts of the western hemisphere, as was true in early New Eng­ land, was predominantly sermons, devotional exercises for special occasions, or similar matter of lesser historical importance. The limited financial resources of the Library have necessarily obliged its successive directors to select really important works and con­ tent themselves with a representative group of the others. This they have done with notable success. The opportunity to enlarge greatly these collections, both quantitatively and qualitatively, was made possible this past year by a grant in June, 1940 of $35,000 over a three year period made by the Rockefeller Foundation for microfilming related material in the great libraries of the world - the Medina Library in the Biblioteca Nacional of Chile, the Andrade Collection in Mexico City, the British Museum, the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, and elsewhere. Mr. Albert Harkness was appointed to undertake the field work of photographing books in the Latin American libraries and has already begun his duties in Santiago de Chile. While from the professional point of view of the librarian microfilm copies of volumes are much less desirable than the books themselves, the scholar accepts with gratitude such opportunities to consult works which are otherwise beyond his reach. Moreover, the possibility of assembling in a single collection a substantial portion of the printed source materials relating to the whole of colonial Latin America no longer exists. Unique copies of many essential books and manuscripts are owned by national and insti­ tutionallibraries and are no longer obtainable at any price, while the few items remaining in private hands are apt to be prohibi­ tively expensive. Hence these difficulties are largely overcome by microfilm copies and when the present project is completed, Brown University will possess, both in actual books and in photographic copies, the most complete collection of colonial imprints available in anyone institution in the world. A few more specific statements regarding the present repre­ sentation of Latin American Books in the John Carter Brown Library are of possible interest. Of the 200 titles printed in Mexico City in the sixteenth century the Library now has 70. When Henry R. Wagner prepared his census of sixteenth century Mexican imprints in 192-4, the John Carter Brown led the group of forty institutions, public and private, American and European, which he canvassed for his survey of existing copies. The Library has also the supposedly unique copy of the first Peruvian imprint, that is, the first issue of the press in South America, the Pragmatica de los diez.. dias del ano, of Lima, 1584. It has copies of the second, third and fourth imprints, and of the thirty-one titles issuing from the press in its first twenty years, it has nineteen. Books in or on the native languages of Mexico and South America have been one of the Library's strongest interests.

[ 5 ] One example of its completeness in that field will suffice. In his Bibliografia de las lenguas Quechua y Aymara, Medina lists 49 titles printed before 1801 of which the Library has 32 and several of them are present in probably unique copies. In addition to this collection there are among the Peruvian materials a large number of pieces dealing with silver, beginning with the earliest known work, the Libro de Plata Redvz..ida, Lima, 1607, in what appears to be a unique copy, and ending with a series of sixteen eighteenth century administrative acts concerning the metal with which Peru changed the monetary economy of Europe. Included in the Peruvian imprints are some thirty or more relaciones, or news sheets of various periods and an equal number of relaciones de servicios, valuable for their biographical data. Since printing began much later in other South American countries it is not to be expected that imprints of their presses are as numerous in the John Carter Brown Library. The first Chilean piece, for example, is dated 1776 and only fifteen items are recorded up to 1801. Most of these are in the Medina Library in Santiago de Chile where they will be presently microfilmed for the Brown col­ lections. More complete is the record of the Paraguayan press maintained by the Jesuits which produced eight known issues, linguistic in character, in the period 1705-1727, three of which are in the Library. Probably no other collection can show an equal number. The history and belles lettres of colonial South America are well represented in works of European publication. Of special relevance is the possession of fourteen of the nineteen early editions of the most famous epic poem produced in America, La araucana, by the Spaniard, Alonso de Ercilla who described the campaigns in southern Chile against the Araucanian Indians and recorded their legends and customs. But space is lacking for an adequate discus­ sion of the treasures contained in the John Carter Brown Library. Suffice to say that it offers the most rounded and representative collection of Latin American colonial imprints in existence.

The George Earl Church Collection The John Hay Library is also a repository of important Latin American materials representing a longer period chronologically. A special group of works preserved in this building is the George Earl Church Collection of publications on Central and South America dating from the period of the Conquest to the end of the nineteenth and even the first decade of the present century. The

[ 6 ] 3500 volumes composing this collection came to the University in I9II as the gift of an American engineer who had spent many years at his profession in South America. This gentleman, who won a colonelcy in the Civil War as a member of a Rhode Island regi­ ment of volunteers, attended the schools of Providence before launching on a colorful career which took him to Argentina for the first time in 1857. There he worked as chief engineer on a rail­ road project and also served on a scientific commission which cov­ ered 7000 miles in its exploration of the southwestern border of the country. Later Colonel Church was a war correspondent in Mexico and participant in the campaigns against the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian. From 1868 to 1880 he was again in South America, carrying out extensive explorations in the interior of Bolivia add Brazil, including a hazardous descent of the Amazon river from its Bolivian source. The remainder of his life was spent in London, though he never relinquished his American citizenship. His trained observations and extensive travels made him an authority on the geography of Latin America and he was honored with an appointment as Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. It was this interest which led him to assemble an imposing personal library of works relating to Central and South America. The tastes of this collector were broad and catholic and, while emphasizing works dealing with political and economic history and travel, he did not fail to include literary reviews and periodi­ cals, some of which are now rare and difficult to obtain. Most of the books representing these various disciplines are in Spanish and Portuguese and about roo of them were printed before 1700. There are about 200 titles on Mexico, over 100 on Central America, some III on the West Indies and Panama, and a good 12.00 on the several South American republics. Standard histories and works less directly concerned with Latin America comprise the remainder. It is, on the whole, a compact balanced collection whose full use­ fulness is contingent on completing broken sets of printed docu­ ments included in it and on filling other gaps by special works that are now available in later editions. The judicious expenditure of a relatively small sum would transform this collection into an excel­ lent research library supplementing the materials so richly avail­ able in the John Carter Brown Library.

The Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays The Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays was ade­ quately described in an earlier number of BOOKS AT BROWN (vol. II, no. 4) and only its relation to the general resources in the field of Latin American studies calls for brief mention. There are some 700 volumes of poetry of our southern neighbors and more works, particularly anthologies, are steadily being added from current purchases, but this number is a very small percentage of the collec­ tion as a whole and a still smaller representation of the muse of the Latin American regions of our hemisphere. The beauty of the ex­ pressive tongues spoken in those parts lures the inhabitants into a prolific production of verse which probably far exceeds that of English-speaking America. The Harris Collection does, however, afford a splendid nucleus of Hispanic American poetry for study and its value for research in this subject may be characterized as prom­ isingly potential.

The John Hay Library There remains the collection of books pertaInIng to Latin America scattered among the general stacks of the John Hay Library. These total altogether about 6000 volumes and are some­ what miscellaneous in character. Of current works on Latin America appearing in the United States during the last decade or more an admirable selection has been made, particularly in the fields of history, geography and biography and it is hoped that such purchases may continue. At the same time it would be desir­ able to supplement these additions by increasing present holdings of monographic material and basic reference works, and by com­ pleting files of periodicals and sets of printed documents. It is par­ ticularly necessary to have a larger representation of the creative literature of Latin America. The shortage in this last respect is so great that in a course on the modern Hispanic American novel offered this year students were obliged to borrow most of the books read from the personal library of the professor. Efforts are being made already to remedy these defects by purchases from cur­ rent funds but, without further financial support, it will be some time before a suitably complete collection will be at the disposal of Brown men. To sum up, then, present book resources for Latin American studies on the campus : the collection of colonial imprints is already the best and most rounded in the country and, with the microfilm project now in operation, will be much enriched; excel­ lent supplementary nuclei of research materials and standard works 'are available in the Church and Harris collections for the study of the history and culture of Latin America. The general library pos-

[ 8 ] sesses a spotty but potentially valuable aggregation of more cur­ rent literature in the general field. There is a real promise of out­ standing strength for Brown in Latin American studies if full advantage is taken further to develop available resources . It may not be amiss in closing to add a word or two concern­ ing the importance of developing cultural ties with our southern neighbors in this hemisphere. Today as never before our country seeks to further its economic and political associations with all nations of Latin America. It is more and more evident to our State Department and other agencies engaged in furthering these ends that the only open door policy that will work is one of American cultural exchange based on mutual understanding. Our leaders, business as well as political, must realize that the hand extended in friendship today must be the hand of one who understands, respects, admires and wishes to perpetuate the noble contributions of others. Tbere is a challenge in all this to the young men of today to equip themselves for careers of patriotic service which closer ties with Latin America are creating. Such careers demand men thoroughly familiar with the psychology, history, general back­ ground and, of course, the languages of our neighbors. Brown University has an exceptional opportunity to playa worthy part in training its undergraduates for such important service. Professor Irving A. Leonard

"GOOD NEIGHBORS" Once upon a time Brown looked down on a street lined with shops and warehouses and students in .. the College Edifice" watched tall ships sail proudly up the Bay. The ships and the shops were filled with West India goods and Spanish milled dol­ lars circulated more freely in Rhode Island than the State's own depreciated currency. It was wealth from the Indies trade that eased the growing pains of the adolescent college and set Brown firml y on the Hill. . John Carter Brown had reason to remember this and, in days when most people thought that" America" and "United States" were wholly synonymous, he sought the rare products of early Latin American presses. Another Providence boy, Col. George Earl Church, was a pioneer engineer and explorer in Central and South America. His library of 3500 volumes, now in the John Hay Library, carries the story into the post-colonial period. The builders of our Harris Collection, too, had the vision to include works by authors who wrote in languages other than English. Then came the Dark Ages. Interest in Latin America waned and almost disappeared. Now the Renaissance is at hand. A new concern for the lands south of the Rio Grande is aroused in the United States. It appears in the "Good Neighbor" policy of Washington. It shows in our foreign trade statistics. Painters from Mexico decorate our build­ ings. Poets from the Argentine are read in Providence. A book on Ecuador ranks high among the best sellers. Tankers, heavy with Venezuelan oil, steam into our harbor. Travelers, cut off from Europe, sail for Rio and Buenos Aires. There is a demand for in­ formation and understanding of the Pan American republics. Men must be trained, if the common interests of the Americas are to be served. Brown's bonds with Latin America are old and solid. Four of her sons have been Secretary of State. It is natural that she should ' take a leading place in the new movement and Professor Leonard's coming makes it plain that the University is awake to the growing importance of Latin American studies. He finds rich resources here and the microfilm project which he describes will strengthen them greatly. Brown is well on her way toward becoming a major center of Latin American studies in the United States. But the Dark Ages left a scar. The John Carter Brown, Church, Harris and other collections give Brown an unrivalled group of early books. Current appropriations permit the Univer­ sity to keep abreast of today's publications. Between the two is a gap. It is not a large one; nor will it be a difficult one to bridge, although it will require additional funds and a degree of watch­ fulness on the part of the library staff, because many of the needed books are out of print. Professor Leonard has drawn up a list of some two hundred titles that, added to Brown's present holdings, will round out the University's resources in this field . Most of the volumes are recent and standard works and none is particularly rare or expensive, yet the lack of these books is a serious handicap. The Friends of the Library is not a money-raising organization and it is not our purpose to carryon a campaign, but we would be less than friendly if we failed to point out such an opportunity for strengthening further one of Brown's strongest branches. Professor Leonard needs two hundred books. If each Friend gave but a single book from his list,-. What more need we say? Just this - checks made out to Brown University and mailed to George L. Miner, Treasurer, at John Hay Library, will be gratefully received.

[ 10] MORE SPECIFICALLY Space does not permit us to describe all of the titles that are wanted, but a fuller list will be sent to any Friend who wishes it. A random selection must suffice . There are the outstanding novels of the Venezuelan, Romulo Gallegos; of his Mexican counterpart, Mariano Azuela; of Ricardo Guiraldes, of the Argentine; of Jose Eustacio Rivera, of Colombia; and of a dozen others who are gradually finding appreciative readers in the United States. Martiniano Leguizamon and Roberto Payro tell of country life in the Argentine; while Carlos Maria Ocantos (considered his country's greatest novelist) writes of the city. There are the Chileans, Joaquin Edwards Bello, Alberto Blest Gana, and Pedro Prado. Guatemala gives us Rafael Arevalo Marti­ nez and Uruguay, Carlos Reyles, a leader of the naturalistic move­ ment. From Mexico come Rafael Delgado, Jose Lopez Portillo, Fernandez de Lizardi and Emilio Rabasa. Latin American novels, like their northern cousins, cost from one to three dollars. Among the important source materials that Brown should have are the letters (10 volumes) and the proclamations and speeches of the Liberator, Simon Bolivar. These were published in Spanish in Caracas by Vincente Lecuna. A great collection of early Mexican letters, Epistolario de Nueva Espana, I505-I8I8, fills eight volumes. Hector R . Ratto's Historia de Brown refers not to our Uni­ versity, but to an admiral of that name who participated in the independence of Argentina. A more comprehensive history of that nation is the one in four volumes edited by Ricardo Levene. Silvio Za vala and Maria Castelo take as many to discuss the sources for a history of Labor in Mexico. Herminio Portell Vila's Historia de Cuba en sus relaciones con los Estados Unidos y Espana is a three­ volume study of Cuban relations with Spain and the United States. It isn't easy to suggest prices of these heavier tomes. A fair average would probably be between five and twenty-five dol­ lars. A thousand dollars, judiciously expended, would fill the gap in Brown's Latin American collections and change Professor Leonard's" potential" to .. actual" ..

Issued from John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island