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Halcyon June 2010.Indd HALCYON THE NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE THOMAS FISHER RARE BOOK LIBRARY ISSUE No. 45, June 2010 ISSN 0840–5565 Chinese Rare Book Exhibition at the Fisher Library Stephen Qiao, China Studies Librarian The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library eaves of Enchantment, Bones of Inspiration: The Dawn of When Mu Xuexun passed away in 1929, his son had been assigned Chinese Studies in Canada is the first comprehensive exhibition to a position outside Beijing and so the family decided to sell the of Chinese rare books to be held in the University of Toronto rare book collection. Canadian missionary Bishop William Charles LLibraries. This is a joint project by the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian White (1873–1960) offered $10,500 to purchase it in its entirety and his Library, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Thomas Fisher Rare offer was accepted by the Mu family. White sought support from Dr. Book Library. The installation of the exhibition aims to celebrate Sigmund Samuel, Sir Robert Mond, and Professor John C. Ferguson the seventy-fifth anniversary of Chinese studies at the University of to help with the purchase. White (whose personal papers and other Toronto and in Canada. archival materials are held in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library) Most of the Chinese rare books in the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian was the first Anglican Bishop in Henan Province (1901–1930). He was Library and the Royal Ontario Museum belong to the so-called “Mu stationed at the city of Kaifeng and was the first Canadian bishop to Collection”—a private collection of scholarly books from Mr. Mu be consecrated for service in the mission field. He also served as an Xuexun (1880–1929). Mu was born in Penglai County, Shandong agent for the Royal Ontario Museum, amassing fine Chinese artefacts Province. He graduated from Peiyang University (Beiyang University, and other materials for the Far Eastern collections. in the pinyin romanisation) in Tianjin in 1911 and worked as the Ten Chinese assistants were hired to prepare a descriptive catalogue Chinese Secretary at the German Legation in Beijing for seventeen years of the library collection. Eighteen volumes were completed early in (1912–1929). He spent over twenty-five years building up his personal 1935 (with another twenty-two volumes prepared later in Toronto), after library, which consisted of roughly forty thousand volumes. which the collection was ready for dispatch to Canada. The shipment IN THIS ISSUE Chinese Rare Book Exhibition at the Fisher Library | Arthur Hailey | Anatomy of the Dromedary: Illustrating the world’s first atlas of camel anatomy | An Unpublished Poem by Grant Allen | Recent Acquisitions of Interest | Members of the Friends of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library 2009–2010 | Events and Exhibitions 2 OPENING PAGE: From the Illustrated Divination Manual of the Liuren Method. Qing Dynasty. BELOW LEFT: Bishop William Charles White (undated). From the Bishop White Archive, Thomas Fisher Library. BELOW RIGHT: From The Complete Annotated Book of Changes. Ming Dynasty. 1415. arrived at Toronto in June 1935. At the time, scripts, nineteen artefacts from the ROM’s it was the third largest university collection collections of oracle bones, bronze coins, ink of Chinese books in North America, after rubbings, jade seals, printing woodblocks and the Gest Library at McGill University (later moveable type have been chosen for display. transferred to Princeton University) and Historical photographs related to Bishop the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard White and the original Far Eastern Library University. The Mu Collection was first housed were also selected from the Bishop White in the ROM’s Sigmund Samuel Gallery. On 5 Papers in the Thomas Fisher Library and the November 1937, the Library officially opened Royal Ontario Museum. Subject coverage of in a new addition specially built for the Mu the titles in this exhibition and its catalogue Collection and named “Professor H.H. Mu is broadly divided into philosophy, religious Library of Chinese Books”. Bishop White was studies, history, historiography, geography, appointed the first keeper of the Library. political science, language, literature, fine Nicholls In 1968 most of the Mu Collection was arts, science and technology. Chronological transferred from the ROM to the East Asiatic coverage ranges from the Song Dynasty Lecture Studies Library of the University of Toronto; (960–1279), through to volumes from the Thanks to the generosity of Hilary the only materials excluded from the transfer Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) up to the sixtieth were those relating to art and archaeology, as year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign (1795). Nicholls the Friends of Fisher have well as approximately five thousand pieces Many of these are unique and exceedingly of Chinese ink rubbings. In 1974, the East rare materials, including about ten Ming and enjoyed a wonderful series of lectures over Asiatic Studies Library moved to the newly Qing manuscripts. constructed John P. Robarts Research Library, It is our hope that this exhibition will the years, bringing experts from around the main humanities and social sciences library demonstrate the great importance of these of the University of Toronto Libraries, where books for academic research. Our current the globe to the Fisher Library to share it was absorbed into the Central Library and endeavour is to make these books known, renamed the “East Asian Library”. The Mu both for their usefulness and for their intrinsic their scholarship with a Toronto audience. Collection was relocated to its own rare book magnificence as inventions of Chinese culture. reading room, with part of it kept in compact This current exhibition and its accompanying It is now Hilary’s wish that the Nicholls shelving in a restricted area. catalogue, Leaves of Enchantment, Bones of Eighty titles have been selected for this Inspiration: The Dawn of Chinese Studies in fund be directed to a new purpose, which special exhibition from both the Cheng Yu Canada, serves as an effective way to promote Tung East Asian Library and the Royal Ontario knowledge of the Mu Collection to scholars will also be of great benefit to the Library. Museum. Along with the books and manu- both locally and internationally. Starting in the 2010/2011 year the endow- ment will fund an internship position, giving a recent graduate in book history or information studies an opportunity to gain valuable experience in a special collections library, and giving all of us at Fisher the opportunity to benefit from a fresh point of view. We thank Hilary for her continuing support of the Library and our collections. A short video of Stephen Qiao discussing the exhibition is on the Fisher Library’s YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/FisherLibrary 3 Arthur Hailey John Shoesmith Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library n a letter dated 10 April 1973, now held This letter is just one of many contained in grammar school owing to his struggles with in the Arthur Hailey Papers at the Thomas the Arthur Hailey Papers, a large and wonder- mathematics.) He drifted from job to job until Fisher Library, Robertson Davies, the ful collection donated by widow Sheila Hailey the Second World War broke out, when he IMaster of Massey College at the time, writes a in 2007. The papers are a true treasure, and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He trained as warm, gracious note to the famous best-selling open a fascinating window into the business, a sergeant pilot in Canada and the U.S, and author Hailey. In many ways, the two men and personal life, of one of the most celebrated served until 1947. When he left the military, could not have been more dissimilar: Davies, and successful authors of his time. he decided to emigrate to Canada. the critical darling and erudite academic, The reactions I’ve received from friends His early writing career in this country and Hailey, the critically maligned author of and colleagues when I tell them I’ve been wasn’t particularly noteworthy or auspicious, so-called potboilers, who left formal schooling working on the Hailey papers run the gamut nor did it foreshadow the immense success at the age of fourteen. Yet, Davies does not —everything from “You mean the guy who he would later enjoy. He joined the publisher treat Hailey as an inferior, but instead as a wrote Roots?” (no, that’s Alex Haley; the two, Maclean Hunter in 1947, first as associate editor, respected peer and colleague. however, did occasionally correspond) to and eventually as editor of the trade business In particular, Davies is quick to defend “I’m surprised the Fisher Library would be publication Bus and Truck Transport. He left Hailey against the intense criticism expressed interested in that.” The most frequent response, that job, and journalism altogether, in 1953, toward the writer’s popular fiction. “I do not however, and one that even I expressed when and became sales and promotion manager understand it, except as evidence of jealousy,” I heard that the library was soon to receive of Trailmobile Canada Ltd., a truck and he writes. “But why are they jealous of a man a shipment of approximately eighty boxes of transport company. who can do something they cannot do and—if Hailey’s papers, is: “I didn’t know he was a Writing, however, was always his first love. they are to be believed—would not wish to Canadian.” Even as a youngster, he was putting pencil do? Speaking for myself, I wish I had your Arthur Hailey was born in Luton, England, to paper and writing little stories. It was ability to engross huge numbers of readers in on 5 April 1920. Despite being a strong and during a flight from Toronto to Vancouver my books, but I also know that it lies outside passionate student, particularly of English and in the fall of 1955, however, that Hailey drew my range.
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