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ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries ★ ★ ★ News from the fie ld Acquisitions manuscript in the custody of the Crèvecoeur fam­ ily. The additional essays were published in 1925 • Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, has re- by the Yale University Press, whose editors, how­ ever, admitted that they had not attempted “to re­ ceived the Kenneth E. and Dorothy V. Hill collec­ produce exactly the manuscript of Crèvecoeur.” tion of rare and fine ornithology books. Presently The full manuscript of the Letters, therefore, has on deposit at Cornell, the books will be housed in never been published. The Library has acquired the History of Science Collections together with the manuscripts imperfectly edited in the 1920s as other historical bird books. The Ornithology Proj­ well as those which formed the basis for the origi­ ect began four years ago with the offer of a nal Letters, and is displaying them during 1987. $150,000 challenge grant by the Hills to develop • T he New York Public Library, New York Cornell’s ornithology collections. Special emphasis has been placed on acquiring pre-1900 works on City, has received the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collec­ North American ornithology. The Hills have also tion “Shelley and His Circle,” the world’s preemi­ established a book endowment fund and are creat­ nent private collection relating to the 19th-century ing an ornithological research fellowship fund. English Romantic writers. The gift was made by • DePaul University, Chicago, has received a the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation of New York and provides a $3 million endowment fund collection of documents relating to the social, cul­ for continued maintenance of the collection. Con­ tural, and economic history of Hispanics in the taining approximately 8,000 manuscripts, the col­ Midwest over the past 12 years. A special archive lection includes the most extensive assemblage of has been created at the University’s Lincoln Park autograph letters by leading poet Percy Bysshe Campus for the materials, received from the Chi­ Shelley (1792-1822), as well as letters, journals, cago Latino Institute, a group serving as an advo­ poetry and prose by members of his circle. It also cate for Latinos and Latino communities through­ contains 13,000 printed volumes, from the late out the Chicago area. The addition of the Hispanic 18th century to the present, which document the archive will further facilitate researchers at De- lives and times of these writers and their impor­ Paul’s Center for Research on Hispanics. tance to later authors, critics and scholars. In addi­ • The Free Library of Philadelphia has acquired tion to Shelley, the circle includes the poet Lord an Edgar Allan Poe letter long thought to be lost. Byron; the pioneering feminist Mary Wollstone- Written by Poe in Philadelphia on July 14,1839, to craft and her husband, the philosopher and novel­ his cousin, George W. Poe of Houston, Texas, the ist William Godwin; their daughter Mary Woll- author briefly relates his own life and provides a stonecraft Shelley (author of Frankenstein); Leigh family tree of descent from his grandfather, John Hunt, poet, liberal journalist, and man of letters; Poe. The autobiographical section contains a few and Thomas Love Peacock, poet and comic novel­ embroideries on the truth, although Poe did take ist. care to point out to his correspondent a number of Highlights of the collection include the Esdaile familial relationships and intermarriages. Notebook, a copybook containing the bulk of Shel­ • The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., ley’s early poetry; a pocket notebook containing the has acquired the original manuscripts of an 18th- only text of A Philosophical View of Reform, Shel­ century American literary classic, Michel- ley’s longest prose work; over a third of the known Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an manuscripts of Shelley’s letters and more than 380 American Farmer (1782) and related essays. The letters and manuscripts by Mary W. Shelley; man­ acquisition was made possible by the Morris and uscripts of three complete works by Godwin and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, which gave funds corrected or association copies of most of his other to the Foundation for the Commemoration of the writings; Shelley’s annotated copies of several of his United States Constitution as a gift to the Library. own works; his annotated copies of the works of The grant was given in recognition of the impor­ Herodotus, Spinoza, and Godwin; many of the tance of Crèvecoeur’s work to the understanding of classical texts used by Shelley during his student the historical context from which the Constitution days at Oxford; as well as Shelley’s first extant emerged. In 1922, an American scholar in France poem, A Cat in Distress, written at the age of ten, discovered that only one-third of the Letters had and copied and illustrated by his sister Elizabeth. ever been published, and that the rest remained in The extensive materials relating to Lord Byron February 1987 / 83 (1788-1824) include holograph manuscripts of his company in New York in 1980 but as yet unpub­ poetry Fare Thee Well, Beppo, Marino Faliero, lished. The 73-page manuscript, written on scraps the last complete canto of Don Juan, and many of and hotel stationery and marked “first draft,” is his letters. In addition, there is an extensive Byron very heavily corrected throughout. archive preserved by Countess Teresa Guiccioli that includes her letters to him, letters to Byron G r a n ts from other Italian mistresses, several versions of Guiccioli’s account of their life together, and her • Emory & Henry College, Emory, Virginia, annotated copies of books about Byron. The collec­ has been selected to receive a $285,000 grant from tion also contains many items of related interest, the Mabel Pew Myrin Trust of Philadelphia. such as portraits by George Romney of Shelley’s $150,000 has been earmarked for a remodelling parents, and a copy of Opie’s portrait of Wollstone- and expansion of the college’s combined computer craft commissioned by Aaron Burr. center and listening lab, housed in the Kelly Li­ Other unusual items include Shelley’s holograph brary. Additional listening equipment and com­ will, a lock of Mary Shelley’s hair, and a broadside puter furniture will be purchased. from an early production of Frankenstein. The col­ • The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., lection offers an in-depth look at the major prede­ has received a grant from the Morris and Gwendo­ cessors who influenced Shelley and his circle as well lyn Cafritz Foundation to support the first phase of as their contemporaries. Included are important production of a publication, Washingtoniana II: A manuscripts by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Guide to the Architecture, Design and Engineering Edmund Burke, Lamb, Washington Irving, Cow­ Collections of the Washington, D.C., Metropoli­ per, and Grabbe, and first editions of works by tan Area in the Prints and Photographs Division of these and others. Much material illuminating the the Library of Congress. Approximately 40,000 ar­ circle’s pervasive influence upon writers up to the chitectural drawings in the Division collections present day is featured, including manuscripts and will be studied, labeled, encapsulated, and re­ rare editions by the Robert and Elizabeth Barrett viewed for conservation needs as part of the proj­ Browning, Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ect. A descriptive inventory will also be prepared. Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Algernon Charles • The Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Swinburne. The research archives of leading Byron scholar Leslie A. Marchand are also included. has been awarded a grant of $100,000 by the Wil­ Conceived and begun by the late Carl H. liam and Flora Hewlett Foundation of Menlo Pforzheimer (1879-1957), a New York City invest­ Park, California, for the purpose of improving bib­ ment banker and one of the major book collectors liographic control over its manuscript collection. A of the 20th century, the collection has been a lead­ uniform, complete description of more than 3,500 ing archive for Romantic research for 30 years. A selected manuscript holdings will be entered into significant portion of the manuscripts have already OCLC by Society catalogers over a two-year pe­ been cataloged and published in the first eight vol­ riod. The entries will serve as the basis for a printed umes of Shelley and His Circle, 1773-1822, initi­ guide to the collection when the Society celebrates ated by the collector in 1952 and published by the its bicentennial in 1991. Harvard University Press. The Pforzheimer Foun­ • The New York State Library, Albany, has re- dation will fund the publication of the four pro­ ceived a $256,668 grant from the National Endow­ jected remaining volumes. Also planned is a pub­ ment for the Humanities to begin identifying and lished catalog of printed books in the collection. cataloging unique newspaper titles. The 18-month • The University of Delaware, Newark, has grant to the New York State Newspaper Project added two manuscripts by playwright Tennessee will permit the Capital District and Rochester ar­ Williams (1911-1983) to its collection of books by eas to join what will eventually become a statewide and about him. One, entitled The Loss of a Tear­ project. Serving about two million people and in­ drop Diamond, is an unproduced screenplay based volving 226 institution systems, the areas’ library on the awkward social debut of Rose Williams, the councils will work with State Library staff to sur­ playwright’s sister. Begun in 1957, the manuscript vey newspaper holdings and complete biblio­ was completed and submitted to Williams’ agent, graphic and location information. A second phase Mitch Douglas, in 1980. The 113-page typed and of the project will include the microfilming of rare holograph working draft, which differs substan­ or damaged newspapers.
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