Iii.—Morality by Convention

Obituary RUTH MORTIMER Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/library/article/s6-16/2/142/950246 by guest on 27 September 2021 16 September 1931-31 January 1994 President, Bibliographical Society of America, 1988-92 SEVERAL YEARS AGO someone entered the Rare Book Room at Smith College and, on being introduced to its curator, said 'Oh, did you know that there is a famous bibliographer with that name?' Ruth Mortimer enlightened him: she was that bibliographer. Such is her reputation, founded firmly on her catalogues of French and Italian sixteenth-century illustrated books in the , Hofer collection at Harvard University, that she passed almost thirty years ago into the strata of bibliographers who are cited by surname and number. Those catalogues reveal much about Ruth. They are bibliographically exemplary, giving detailed physical descriptions, noting variants, and citing other copies where relevant. But they go beyond strict bibliography to follow the previous and subsequent life of the illustrations and make connections between author, artist, text, and printer. Ruth continued to pursue these connections, and they formed the subject of her lectures as Rosenbach fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. Author portraits in particular had interested her since working on the Hofer collection, and she was able to synthesize her work in 1980 when she delivered (and published) the Hanes lecture marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Hanes Foundation. Ruth had a strong creative streak, and it is probably this which made her work with illustrated books so insightful. She was interested in the tech- nique of illustrations and artistic influences in addition to the content and iconography of the image. This pertained to modern print-making as well as historic. As curator of Rare Books at Smith College, she built up a collection of early lithography, casually referred to as the 'not in Twyman' collection, and added books containing original artwork, some by alumnae of Smith College. She and her husband personally patronized artists of the Pioneer Valley and commissioned one etching, 'The Collector', from printmaker Abigail Rorer. Modern fine printing also lay within her purview, and she was a member of the Committee on Fine Printing of the Grolier Club and of the Board of Directors of the Hampshire Typothetae from 1977 to 1981. Her work on the publication history of Frankenstein was one of four essays published in Mary Wollstonecrafi Shelley, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prome- theus at Barry Moser's Pennyroyal Press, printed by Harold P. McGrath and illustrated by Moser. Obituary 143 To think of her creativity only in terms of the visual arts would be unjustly limiting, however, because Ruth was foremost a lover of language. As an undergraduate at Smith, Ruth had been a protege of Mary Ellen Chase, the doyen of the English faculty who took under her wing a small, select circle of gifted students. Another revered member of the faculty, Elizabeth Drew, fostered a similar salon; her brilliant student to rival Ruth Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/library/article/s6-16/2/142/950246 by guest on 27 September 2021 was Sylvia Plath. Ruth was not only recognized as a good scholar, graduating summa cum laude in 195 3, but also as an accomplished poet. Although devoting her later energies to bibliography, Ruth did maintain a keen interest in poetry, continued to write and read it, and published a volume of Haiku. Love of language also made her a lifelong theatre-goer. This was an interest she could indulge in New York while she worked at the Brooklyn Public Library after graduating from Smith, and later in Boston and Cambridge, Mass. From their home in Williamsburg, Mass., she and her husband John Lancaster frequently combined trips to New York for Grolier Club or BSA meetings with evenings at the theatre. After receiving her master's degree from Columbia University's School of Library Service in 1957 Ruth moved to Cambridge, Mass., to take up a position as Rare Book Cataloguer in the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. She was fortunate to arrive in time to work with William Jackson for the last seven years of his career, and he was very much a formative influence on her work with rare books. Under Jackson's direction, she was assigned the task of writing the first catalogue of part of the Hofer collection, the French sixteenth-century illustrated books. It appeared in 1964 and was followed a decade later by the second catalogue, on Italian sixteenth-century illustrated books. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1966 towards work on the Italian volume, and she visited Italy and England to compare copies and consult other relevant works. Not only did Ruth delight in the books with which she was working, but she loved Cambridge, was happily ensconced in an apartment with her cats, and could take advantage of cultural opportunities offered by Boston and the university. In 1974 she and John Lancaster were married. Ruth left the Houghton Library in 1975 to become Curator of Rare Books at Smith College, and. there she devoted her energies to building the collection, making it available to scholars, and most important of all, using it as a resource for undergraduates. Two noteworthy acquisitions were important manuscript collections of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. As part of her concern for undergraduate use of the collection, Ruth introduced a course on 'The composition of books'. For much of its life it was a course unique among undergraduate colleges. She selected twelve students for each autumn term and sought to have a mix of interests and disciplines. As one of those students, I recall vividly the classes on Wednesday evenings. We 144 Obituary would gather in the rarified atmosphere of the Rare Book Room itself, and Ruth would pass around materials from the collection to illustrate her points, beginning with a cuneiform tablet. Actually handling rare books, experiencing them visually and physically, was key to Ruth's view of the book as an art form. We were introduced to a world most of us hadn't known to exist, and here we were learning from a woman whose own Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/library/article/s6-16/2/142/950246 by guest on 27 September 2021 writings were on the shelves of the Rare Book Room. The appeal of rare books had much to do with the refined atmosphere of the room and subject matter, but Ruth certainly contributed to that. Midway through the evening we would retire to the back office for tea and delicate European biscuits, then would wash our hands again before resuming the class. Someone once asked her how many of her students had gone on to library school. Ruth was appalled to think that anyone might consider her course as training for library school. Yes, there were exercises in collation and physical descrip- tion, but the course was much more about the book as an art form, and she encouraged students to bring their own approach to the material. Her students were more likely to go on to be artists, authors, and playwrights than they were to be bibliographers. Ruth was not only an ideal role model as a woman with scholarly credentials, but she cut quite a figure. Wrapped in clothes of beautiful textures and colours, adorned with antique jewellery, and topped by a hat (perhaps with a single, sweeping pheasant feather) on her neat silver hair, she stood out on campus. When in 1992 she received the John M. Greene award from Smith for her dedicated service to the college, particularly for stepping in as Acting College Librarian in 1991—92, it was remarked that she was recognized, if not personally known, to most of the college community, because of her stylish hats. Ruth was nothing if not fastidious: in her work, in her appearance, in her hobbies. Origami was an interest, as was needlework. She played the piano, and a few years ago took up the clavichord. Some may see in these an interest in 'womanly arts', but they rather reflect her attention to detail, her creativity, and sense of colour, texture and line. One 'womanly art' she did not excel in was the culinary. A friend has related how Ruth once served a Thanksgiving dinner produced almost entirely by opening tins. Fortuna- tely, she found a skilled cook in John Lancaster, and I like to picture their big kitchen with John cooking on his professional range on one side, and Ruth curled up on the sofa on the other, undoubtedly with a cat in her lap. Among her other professional accomplishments, Ruth was the first woman to be elected president of the Bibliographical Society of America, serving from 1988 to 1992, and was on its Council, Publications Commit- tee, and Fellowship Committee. From 1981 to 1988 she edited the Society's Papers with her husband John. It is a tribute to their diligence and scholarship that they were able to attract articles of high calibre. They also introduced Obituary 145 a section of Selected Short Notices which brought attention to books not strictly on bibliographical topics but which contained 'material of significant bibliographical interest'. Again, Ruth fostered interests beyond, but allied to, bibliography and sought interdisciplinary connections. Ruth was also Secretary of the Grolier Club in 1990, and that year she received the Distinguished Alumna Award from Columbia University School of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/library/article/s6-16/2/142/950246 by guest on 27 September 2021 Library Service. Throughout her four-year struggle with breast cancer Ruth maintained an admirable equilibrium.

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