June 1998 ISSN 0840-5565

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS 'OF THE THOMAS FISHER RARE BOOK LIBRARY ISSUE No. 21, June 1998 ISSN 0840-5565 Tennis Anyone? For the past several years the beginning of sani i corpi nostri, per rendere i giovani piu important work by Simon Pierre Foumier the "gifts" year was always the same. Early gagliardi & piu robusti" (to keep ourselves on printing, which he had just seen in a in the New Year I would be asked to meet healthy, to make our young men stronger bookdealer's catalogue. There was no a donor in the Reference area. I knew what and more robust). In the work, he de- money available at the time and we had to that meant. I would see a tall man with a scribes a large court where one plays the refuse. But Richard Landon was optimistic. military bearing, carrying a somewhat game with a racquet, an innovation that A copy would turn up in a gift, he was battered brief case. From this case, each had only just come into common usage, sure. Several months later, I was unpack- visit, he would, slowly and carefully, draw and a small court for the hand-game. There ing a collection in the basement and there, out a few items he had specially selected are many similarities to the modem in my hand, appeared Fournier's Manual for the collections of the Fisher Library. version: a racquet is spun to decide the first typographique utile awegens de lettres Since 1990 John Cambridge has been the server, the scoring is by "15, 30, 40, game", (Paris, 1764-17661, as well as his Trait& fust donor of each new year and, for me, and the terms "volley", "deuce" and historiques et critiques sur l'origine et les his visit meant that people were recovering "vantage" are known. The work explains progrk de I'imprimerie (Paris, 1758-1763) from the festive season and beginning to the game in great detail and is filled with and his Discours sur l'imprimae (Paris, think about the new year's charitable illustrations of various courts, racquets, 1767). I think my exclamation of delight donations. Mr. Cambridge loved his books balls and instruments for pumping up the could be heard in the workroom two and he delighted in telling me how and leather ball. It is a wonderful reminder of floors above. Richard just smiled. There where he had obtained each volume and the length of time this game has been were many other treasures discovered that why he had selected it for the Fisher popular, and the Fisher Library was pleased day: a 1498 edition of Sebastian Brant's Library. Mr. Cambridge died on January to be able to add it to its collections, where Stultifera Navis (The Ship of Fools) being 19th, 1998, and this January was just not this work will be for me a reminder of a just another of them. Brant is now best the same. So it seems appropriate that I very special donor. known for this famous and important begin this year's report by describing one Some time ago a member of the faculty satire, although at the time it was his Latin of his 1997 donations. Trattato del Giuoco asked if we could afford to purchase a very poetry that brought him to the attention of della Palla was printed .in Venice in 1555 humanistic circles. The work is in the form by the famous printer, Gabriel Giolito. It Below left: Tennis racquets, pump and ball of an allegory (a ship laden with fools and was the first work written by the lay from Antonio Scaino's Trattato del Giuoco steered by fools is on its way to the fools' preacher, philosopher and poet, Antonio della Palla, 1555 (8tft of John Cambridge). paradise of Narragonia) and Brant uses Scaino, and contains the earliest bibliogra- Below centre and right: Two facingpages this form to point out the weaknesses and phy of writers on tennis. He begins with a from Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis, vices he saw around him. Although known justification for the game: {'Perconservar 1498 (giftof Ronald Peters). as a conservative, he was most vehemently opposed to the way the Church was Right: Front cover of Cicero 's Epistolae ad abusing its privileges, and this popular T. Pomponium Atticum, 1582 (gift ofJan book proved to be a very effective prepara- Matejcek). tion for the Protestant Reformation. It will Below: The "long tale"from Alice's now join the Fisher Library's small but Adventures in Wonderland, 1866 (g~Â¥fof growing collection of incunabula. This and Joseph Brabant). other classic works on typography and printing not yet owned by the Fisher Factorum Dictommque Memorabilium, Library (nor indeed, by any other Canadian issued in Munich in 1546, bears the date institution whose data base we were able 1552. Such bindings are not commonly to search) were donated by Friends of the seen and rarely in such fine condition. Fisher Library President, Ronald Peters. We Last November, Professor Gerald are most thankful for his generosity in Bendey and his wife, Beth, asked if we donating his outstanding collection of would be interested in some eighteenth works in the fields of printing, typography and nineteenth century English works. and type founding. Since this Library collects extensively in Professor Ray Morrison offered us his this area, we were, and a car was dis- collection of works by and about Lawrence patched to pick up the gift. It turned out to Durrell and Joyce Carol Oates. We were delighted to accept. Virtually every pub- lished work produced by these two authors is represented in this gift. Durrell's early works are rare and many of Oates's were issued in small runs and are now hard to and general collections benefited greatly find, but Professor Morrison was able to from these donations. track them down during his collecting Mr. J. Kirk Howard demonstrated the career and turn over to us an excellent wide range of his collecting interests when research collection. he gave us his rare book collection. Not Another wonderfully complete collec- only were the great names of modem tion was given to us by Joseph Brabant. Mr. Canadian literature represented (many by Brabant, who died last spring, spent some signed copies presented to Mr. Howard), forty years buying items by and about but also the great names in English and Lewis Carroll, especially Alice in Wonder- American literature. A beautifully bound land. His gift requires an article all to itself copy of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1613) to do it justice and we hope to include one currently sits on the shelf beside John in a future issue of Halcyon. Suffice it to Masefield's copy of the 1885 facsimile say that this is an incredible assembly of all edition of Shakespeare's Lucrece, while the the first and subsequent editions and first American edition of Thackeray's Paris appearances of works by Lewis Carroll, Sketch Book (1853) is followed by first including Alice and other children's books editions of Gertrude Stein's Wars I Have as well as his mathematical works and Seen (1945) and her operatic work Four miscellaneous publications. The accompa- Saints in Three Acts (1934). Nineteenth nying but separate gift made by Mr. century Canadian literature is represented Brabant's heir, Nicolas Maes and his family, be a wonderful collection: a 1749 edition of by the journal Le foyer canadien (Quebec, consisting of twentieth century editions and Henry Fielding's TomJones in four volumes, 1863-1866) and by Bishop Mountain's translations, will make the' Fisher Library a the second and third editions of Jane Songs of the Wilderness (1846). Several centre for future research on Carroll. This Austen's Pride and Prejudice; the fmt collections will be enhanced by this donation was described as being un- edition in original boards of James Morier's generous gift. equalled in range and depth by any Ayesha the Maid of Kars, and the first In the same month, Dr. Norman Ball Canadian institutional or private library. Dublin edition of Ann Raddiffe's The turned over to us some forty books. Chiefly A very interesting collection was Italian or, the Confessional of the Black dating from the nineteenth century, his received from Mr. Jan Matejcek. It was Penitents (17971, being just some of the compilation of works on mechanical formed originally by his father and re- highlights. This donation rivalled that of engineering, machine making, shipbuilding flected his interest in religious studies as William Johnston, another collector of and carpentry, such as Andrew Gray's The well as his vocational interest in canon and eighteenth and nineteenth century English Experienced Millwright (1806) and Ship- common law. For us, the works have the literature. His gift included works by a building, edited by W. J. MacQuom added value of being in their original number of European and classical authors Rankine (1866), are a welcome addition to pigskin bindings over wooden boards. printed in England in the seventeenth and our holdings in these fields. Three bindings are dated: the 1580 Lyon eighteenth centuries, as well as the first Also specially selected for the Fisher edition of the works of Aristotle was bound edition of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones Library was the donation made by our in 1584; Cicero's Epistolae ad T. (1749) in six volumes, and a thirty-six Director, Richard Landon. From his collec- Pomponium Atticum (Antwerp, 1582) in volume set of the works of Voltaire tion, he chose two works by William 1595, and the cover of Valerius Maximus's (London, 1762-1772).

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