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ADAMS (JOHN),THE LIBRARY OF PRESIDENT (approximately 3,700 volumes). Deposited with the Boston Public Library in 1894, the John Adams Library includes thousands of volumes collected by the second president during his lifetime (1735-1826) as well as numerous volumes donated by his family members. One of the greatest private collections of its day, the Adams Library remains one of the largest original early American libraries still intact. This remarkable collection represents the intellectual tastes of an influential thinker, writer, and political philosopher who helped shape the Constitution of the United States and drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, the oldest functioning written constitution in the world. John Adams’s library spans the fields of classics, literature, history, politics, government, philosophy, religion, law, science, mathematics, medicine, agriculture, language and linguistics, economics, and travel. The collection is of particular interest to scholars and historians because Adams recorded thousands of interpretive and critical manuscript annotations in the margins of hundreds of his books. Selected books will be digitized, transcribed, and made available online in 2006. This collection is accessible through the BPL’s electronic catalog (Search on keyword anywhere: “John Adams Library”).

ADLOW (ELIJAH) PAPERS. This collection contains approximately 10,000+ legal documents relating to Suffolk County and Massachusetts. The earliest records begin before the Revolution and include the Colonial Court Records, the Supreme Judicial Court records, writs of attachment and execution, criminal complaints, jail construction and prisoner lists. The collection is partially cataloged.

ADUNATA COLLECTION.See Fondo L'Adunata Collection.

ANTI-SLAVERY MANUSCRIPTS(ca. 17,000 pieces). In the late 1890’s, the family of William Lloyd Garrison, along with others closely involved in the anti-slavery movement, presented the library with a major gathering of correspondence, documents, and other original material relating to abolition. The major groups consist of the papers of William Lloyd Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman and Deborah Weston, Lydia Maria Child, Amos Augustus Phelps, John Bishop Estlin, and Samuel May, Jr. Other valuable resources are the account books of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator; records of the American, Massachusetts, and New England Anti-Slavery Societies; scrapbooks concerning Anthony Burns and John Brown; and the files of Ziba B. Oakes, a slave broker of Charleston, South Carolina. This entire collection has been organized and cataloged. The papers of the Weston sisters are on microfilm, together with the finding aid.

The library also has extensive holdings of printed material relating to the anti-slavery movement. The libraries of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker are here, all rich in relevant pamphlets and broadsides. The Hunt Collection on the West Indies is another fine resource from a different perspective. In addition, an 89-page unpublished typed index to The Liberty Bell is available in the Rare Books Department.

The ARTZ (VICTORINE T.) COLLECTION OF LITERATURE. (ca. 17,600 volumes). The Longfellow Memorial Collection as it is formally known was initiated in 1896 with a $10,000 gift from Miss Victorine T. Artz of Chicago for the purchase of the writings of American and foreign authors. Other gifts and purchases of literary works added since then include nearly 900 volumes from the estate of Louise Chandler Moulton (a list may be found in the Library’s Bulletin, 3^rd series, v.II, pp. 209-229), and more than 300 titles from the library of Elizabeth Porter Gould. The former are frequently inscribed presentation copies, often with autograph letters inserted. Among the many first editions found in the collection are such classics as Through the Looking Glass (1872, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Moby Dick, or the Whale (1851), The Scarlet Letter (1850), and Aesop’s Fables in a multitude of languages and versions. Strong representation of such diverse authors as Samuel Beckett, James Brendan Connolly, Francis Marion Crawford, Charles Dickens, Eugene Field, John Galsworthy, William Dean Howells, J.R. Lowell, John Masefield, Sean O’Faolain, William Gilmore Simms, James Stephens, W.M. Thackeray, G. Whittier, Edmund Wilson, and Humbert Wolfe, as well as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow himself is also found. There is also an extensive, though not exhaustive, collection of works by and about Walt Whitman (220 volumes).

BARLOW (SAMUEL L. M.) COLLECTION (328 volumes). The Boston Public Library was a major purchaser of books from the February 1890 sale of the library of Samuel L.M. Barlow, an important collector of Americana, who himself had acquired the earlier collection of Colonel Thomas Aspinwall. Among the gems of this collection are the first Latin edition of the Columbus Letter of 1494; the first edition of Hakluyt, Principal Navigations…of the English Nation (1589); Monardes, Ioyfell Newes Out of Newfound World (1577); Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse (1650); Mourt, A Relation…of the English Plantation (1622); and rare works of the 16^th through 18^th centuries in Spanish, French, and Dutch. A highlight of the collection is the manuscript "Copie of the Court booke of the Governor and Society of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," dating from before 1653, the only known copy of the original records in existence. A list of the Library’s purchase may be found in its Bulletin, vol. IX (1890, p. 359-376).

BARTON (THOMAS PENNANT) COLLECTION (ca. 15,000 volumes). One of the cornerstones of the Rare Book Department, this remarkable assemblage of books was acquired in 1873 from the widow of Thomas Pennant Barton, the earliest American collector of Shakespeare. Among the great rarities of this collection are the first four folio editions of Shakespeare's collected works and some 45 quarto editions of individual plays dating from the seventeenth century. The catalogue of the collection also provides access to many translations of and commentaries on Shakespeare, his sixteenth and seventeenth century sources, an extensive collection of portraits and illustrative material (some in proof form), and many manuscripts. The latter includes the original subscription list for Boydell’s Shakespeare, with the autographs of George III and Queen Charlotte and the correspondence of John Britton and Halliwell-Phillipps. Manuscripts and letters from various editors and commentators are also found in the collection as well as two manuscripts in the hand of David Garrick and an early version of the music to "Macbeth," now attributed to Richard Leveridge.

In 1888, the Catalogue of the Miscellaneous Portion of the Collection was published. It includes volumes from the libraries of Barton’s father, naturalist Benjamin Smith Barton, and his father-in-law, Edward Livingston, a congressman, secretary of state, and minister to France. Other high points of the collection include the sixteen-volume set of De Bry’s Voyages (1598-1628) and hundreds of pamphlets (mostly anonymous) from the French Revolution. The collection includes items spanning the 15^th through the 19^th centuries, in half a dozen languages, encompassing drama and literature, history, travel, fine presses, and volumes notable for their illustrations or bindings.

Besides the two catalogues mentioned, background information on Barton and his library may be found in Boston Public Library Bulletin, 4^th series, v.3 (1921), pp. 173-177, and "America’s First Shakespeare Collection", by John Alden, in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, v. 58 (1964) pp. 169-173.

BENTLEY (HARRY C.) COLLECTION (ca. 700 volumes). The focus of this gift from Harry C. Bentley, founder of Bentley College, is on works on accounting by American authors before 1901. While the Library by no means owns all items in the Bentley-Leonard Bibliography (Boston, 1934), this can serve as a useful guide to the collection.

BENTON (JOSIAH H.) COLLECTION (1,500 volumes). Formed by Josiah H. Benton - lawyer by profession and munificent benefactor of the Boston Public Library - this collection was designed to show the origin and growth of the Book of Common Prayer. A privately printed catalog describes the bulk of the volumes, although a number of important additions have been made since its publication in 1914. Notable items include both the Whitchurche and Grafton printings of Edward VI’s first Prayer Book of 1549, Merbecke’s Prayer Book (1550), the Scottish Liturgy of 1637, the first American edition of the Prayer Book of 1710, a hundred or more translations including such rarities as the Mohawk Prayer Book of 1715, and more than 120 special forms authorized for occasions such as Thanksgiving for a naval victory, the birth of a royal child, or a petition for averting the plague. In addition, the Benton Collection contains a representative selection of sixty volumes printed by early English printer, John Baskerville (1706-1775).

BOSTON AUTHORS CLUB COLLECTION (ca. 1,500 volumes). The library of the Boston Authors Club, consisting of works by its members, was given to the Boston Public Library in 1963. Many of the volumes are the authors’ presentation copies. The gift also encompasses some 500 manuscripts, including correspondence concerning the founding of the Club in 1887 and collections of poetical tributes to Julia Ward Howe on her 86^th birthday and to Alice Brown on her 62^nd. The club is still active and members continue to make donations of current titles. Typed lists of both printed and manuscript material may be consulted in the Rare Books Department.

BOSTON BROWNING SOCIETY, THE LIBRARY OF THE (ca. 1,000 volumes). was given to the Boston Public Library in 1897 to make it available to a larger audience. The collection includes photographs, manuscripts, first editions, and many biographical and critical works of the Brownings. Among the more important items are the Browning's sketchbook, containing twenty-nine caricatures and drawings by the poet and almost 200 by his father, proof sheets of Sordello, which include corrections in the poet’s hand, a rare copy of Bells and Pomegranates (1841-1846), and holograph copies of some of Elizabeth’s poetry. Also of interest are the early records of the Boston Browning Society, a lock of Robert’s hair, a bronze cast of Elizabeth and Robert's clasped hands, and a jewel box once belonging to Elizabeth. All materials are accessible through the Rare Books and Manuscripts catalog.

BOSTON CITY RECORDS. This material includes tax assessor’s records from 1780-1821, Boston Town Meeting Minutes from 1634-1822, Boston Selectmen Meeting Minutes from 1701-1822, and early manuscript records of Brighton, Charlestown, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and West Roxbury.

BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL COLLECTION (ca. 2,500 items). Donated by the Boston Latin School, the oldest public high school in the United States tracing its founding to 1634, this collection includes much ephemeral material from the 19^th and 20^th centuries -- orders of exercises, annual prize drills, public declamations, catalogs of students, student publications, photographs, etc. Also found are books and memorabilia of the Boston Latin School Association, including books by or belonging to former students, as well as magazine and newspaper articles about the school. In addition, the collection contains approximately 1,400 manuscripts, including volumes of admissions and attendance records, correspondence from and regarding former students, and records of the Boston Latin School Association from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Typed lists may be consulted in the department. Printed items are now on-line and may be searched on the computer or in the card catalog.

BOSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE RECORDS. The collection consists of the original documents and related papers of the Committee from 1792 through 1905.

BOSTON'S MARITIME INDUSTRIAL HISTORY. Books and manuscripts relating to ships, the sea, Boston Harbor, and the commerce thereof. Included are Account Books - Mass - Boston (for companies located on the docks, dates are dates of the records); Boston--Commerce; Boston--Wharves; Log Books (only those not cocerned with whaling and fishing; Maps--Boston Harbor (Leventhal Map Center); Merchants, American--Mass--Boston; Ships--Inspection; Shipbuilding; West Indies--Commerce--Boston; Wharves--Boston, Chelsea, Charlestown, East Boston; and printed items such as the Boston City Directories (also available on microfilm) containing maps of the city and listings of wharves and businessess located on the wharves; and Ships and the Sea: A Catalog of an Exhibition of Books and Manuscripts in Tribute to Boston's Maritime Past, July 1-September 30, 1966 in the Boston Public Library." Boston’s Maritime Industrial History contained in the Microtext and Newspaper Department include Passenger and Immigration Lists; Crew Lists; Lloyd’s publications; Commercial Newspapers; General Newspapers; Customs Lists; Naval History; Papers; Dissertations; Diplomatic Records; and Local Histories.

BOWDITCH (NATHANIEL) COLLECTION (ca. 11,000 volumes). The personal library of Nathaniel Bowditch encompasses works on mathematics, astronomy, and navigation. Bowditch is best known as the editor of The Practical Navigator (1799) and The New American Practical Navigator (1802). Among the treasures of the collection are early editions by such scientific luminaries as Galileo, Newton, and LaPlace; numerous treatises on comets and sundials; long runs of scientific periodicals; and, of course, Bowditch’s own manuscripts. The latter have recently been microfilmed and a printed guide published. Although no separate catalog of the printed books exists, brief descriptions of the original gift may be found in the Boston Public Library Bulletin, 4^th series, v.4, no.1, pp.1-6, pp. 1-6, and in Wadlin, Public Library of the City of Boston: A History (Boston, 1911), pp.120-121.

BROWN (ALLEN A.) COLLECTION OF BOOKS RELATING TO THE STAGE (6,500 volumes). Donated in 1909 by Allen A. Brown, one of the library’s major benefactors, the original gift of about 3,500 volumes was described in a printed catalog in 1919. The strengths of the collection include short-lived 18^th and 19^th century dramatic periodicals, both English and American; unique broadside programs printed before 1801; and volumes of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and theatrical portraits that have been indexed for easy access. More recent acquisitions include other scrapbook collections that form substantial additions to the sections on biography and national theatres.

Smaller, but interesting, collections relating to the theatre include the Lila Viles Wyman Collection of the Dance (183 volumes); the Bertram E. Adams collection of books relating to magic (600 volumes); and the Lotta Clark pageant collection (only partially catalogued).

Mr. Brown also preserved and donated the entire archives of the Boston Theatre on Federal Street, the first public theater in Boston founded in 1793. Found among these papers are contracts, inventories, managers’ correspondence, and innumerable receipts and bills for all kinds of work and supplies. Other important theatre and performance-related archives located in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department concern the Tremont Theatre of Boston, the Hanlon family, Fred Allen, and a series of letters to and from Jack Benny.

CHAMBERLAIN (MELLEN) COLLECTION OF AUTOGRAPHS (ca. 20,000 pieces). Lawyer and judge by profession, historian by inclination, and from 1878 to 1890 Librarian of the Boston Public Library, Mellen Chamberlain was a passionate collector of autographs and manuscripts. This is great storehouse of documents, letters, autographs and manuscripts holdings, both American and European, from the end of the 15^th century through the 19^th century. Kings, statesmen, artists, literary figures, clergymen, and scientists are all are represented. Highlights of the collection include unique documents on the Salem witchcraft trials and William Dyer’s letter of 1659 pleading for the life of his imprisoned wife Mary. Also found are such diverse topics as Men and Women of the Revolution, Eminent Quakers, American Artists, George Washington, European Sovereigns, Napoleon III, and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Correspondence and papers of Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Samuel Henley, Rev. Thomas Raffles, Dorothea Dix, Chief Justice Parsons, Theophilus Parsons, Jr., as well as John Hancock and his uncle Thomas are also found in this collection.

The best overview of the collection is found in A Brief Description of the Chamberlain Collection, published by the Trustees in 1897. More than 250 "seals of eminent persons" have been mounted, identified and listed in the above-mentioned Description. A typed checklist allows access to the hundreds of engravings and other pictorial matter.

CODMAN (HENRY AND PHILIP) COLLECTION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (ca. 2,200 volumes). Begun by and given in memory of landscape architects Henry and Philip Codman, the Codman Collection has grown from 671 titles to well over 2,000 volumes. The original published catalogue includes works by Humphrey Repton, John Claudius London, and Frederick Law Olmstead. Today the collection encompasses not only volumes on landscape gardening, but also major works on botany, domestic architecture, natural history, and gardening.

DWIGGINS (WILLIAM ADDISON) COLLECTION. Received in 1967 as a gift from the widow of William Addison Dwiggins, noted typographer, book designer, and illustrator, this collection encompasses "all products, examples, and tools" of Dwiggins’ "art activities." His famous marionette theatre and hand-made marionettes are exhibited in two rooms. His workbench and tools, self-designed and manufactured furniture, original drawings for 19 typefaces, and more than 400 sketches for his book illustrations and typographic icons, 300 books designed by Dwiggins, correspondence, layouts, job folders, and memorabilia complete the collections. An inventory to the printed collection is available; the manuscripts can be located in the on-line catalog. See also the Dorothy Abbe Collection.

FEER (ROBERT A.) COLLECTION (ca. 1,360 items). Originally limited to material relating to World’s Fairs of North America, this collection has been expanded to incorporate other fairs and expositions including those abroad. A checklist was printed, but considerable additional material may be found among the Rare Book Department accessions and in the Research Library stacks.

FELICANI, (ALDINO) SACCO AND VANZETTI COLLECTION. The Felicani Collection is the major source of books, pamphlets, documents, and manuscripts on the lives, times, and fates of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Measuring 126 cubic feet of printed and manuscript material, the content of this collection is documented through a printed inventory. The collection’s large group of contemporary anarchist newspapers is available on microfilm. Major elements of the collection include 137 autograph letters by Vanzetti and the 19 by Sacco, the papers of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, publications of the committee, papers of defense attorney Fred Moore, publicity scrapbooks, papers of the New Trial League, and a varied group of radical pamphlets. The post-1927 materials collected by Mr. Felicani, including publicity of the 1959 State House hearing, are also important elements in this collection. Photographs, the death masks and crematory ashes of both Sacco and Vanzetti, placards, armbands, and other miscellaneous articles complete the collection. The BPL has created a booklist about Sacco and Vanzetti and also has published a book of the proceedings of a symposium about the famous men.

FIELD, (KATE) COLLECTION.This collection consists of approximately 1,500 letters pertaining to English and American literature collected by this St. Louis-born journalist, actress, and author. As a young woman, Field traveled to Europe where she formed enduring friendships with the Brownings, the Trollops, George Eliot, Charlotte Cushman, and other distinguished people of her time.

FONDO L'ADUNATA COLLECTION. This voluminous collection is composed of the papers of L'Adunata dei Refrattteri, the longest running newspaper of the Italian-American anarchist movement, published in New York from 1922-1971. The correspondence of Max Sartin, Osvaldo Maraviglia, Pio Turroni and others who were associated with the newspaper comprise the majority of the collection. An on-line finding aid is available in the department.

FRANKLIN (BENJAMIN) COLLECTION. (ca. 1,000 volumes). Benjamin Franklin was one of Boston’s most famous native sons. This collection, donated by Dr. Samuel Abbott Green and William S. Appleton, includes Franklin’s own writings in a variety of editions, and well over a hundred items from his press. Four portfolios of portraits of Franklin and related pictorial material were transferred to the Print Department. A list of these and other portraits may be found in the Library’s Bulletin, vol. XI (1892), p. 139-150.

FREILIGRATH (FERDINAND) COLLECTION. ca. 2500 volumes). This collection of German literature, primarily poetry - epic and dramatic as well as lyric - once formed the library of the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath. In addition to a valuable folk-song collection and early almanacs, there are important first editions, many signed, by such German authors as Goethe and Novalis.

The library has been described in detail in More Books (v. 16, 1941, p.179-189 and 322-324). The Catalogue of the Library of the Library of J. Montgomery Sears (Cambridge, Mass., 1882), also serves as a checklist since Sears was an interim owner.

GALATEA COLLECTION (ca. 5400 volumes). In 1896, Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson gave the Library a special collection of nearly one thousand books "bearing on the general subject of the History of Women," in a variety of European languages dating back to the mid-17^th century. A number of the volumes are inscribed presentation copies to Higginson. This is one of the earliest book collections formed in this country devoted exclusively to women.

A catalog was published in 1898, but many volumes have been added to this collection through gifts, transfers, and purchases, including a number of important periodicals, such as the Lowell Offering (1843-1845), Woman’s Era (1894-1897), and Woman’s Journal (1870-1917). The collection is documented in the Research Publication’s recent microfilm series, The History of Women.

HUNT COLLECTION. See West Indies Collection.

INCUNABULA. Incunabula are defined as books printed before January 1, 1501. The term comes from the Latin for "things from the cradle," i.e. the cradle of printing. The library has approximately 525 titles in this category. Johann Gutenberg is credited with inventing printing from moveable types somewhere between 1450-55. The two earliest titles in the library's collection are attributed to Gutenberg - a leaf from his famous bible ("The Gutenberg Bible") printed between 1454-55 and the Catholicon printed in 1460. The latter is one of only 10 copies located in the United States and the only one printed on vellum (calfskin). Also found among the incunabula category is the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), the first encyclopedic history of the world, the extraordinary Hypnerotomachia Poliphila (1499), Divina Commedia (1481) by Dante Alighieri with etchings by Sandro Botticelli, early editions of The Golden Legend and Canterbury Tales as well as the writings of Eusebius, Boccacio, Martialis and Thomas Aquinus. Early printers represented in the collection include Johann Gutenberg, Sweynheym and Pannartz, Anton Koberger, Gunther Zainer, Peter Schoeffer, Nicholas Jenson, Geoffrey Tory, William Caxton and Richard Pynson. Access to the collection is through the card catalog in Rare Books or through Frederick Goff's Incunabula in American Libraries.

MODERN IRISH HISTORY COLLECTION. This collection consists of more than 1,500 books, pamphlets, broadsides, leaflets, typed documents and letters, holograph letters, and ephemera covering the Fenian period to the early days of the Irish Free State. Coverage includes Fenian and post-Fenian organizations at home and overseas, land disturbances, Parnell, Home Rule, the rise of the Labour party, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Treaty, the Civil War, and the beginnings of the Free State.

ITALIAN LIBRETTI AND BALLET COLLECTIONS (3,256 libretti). The famous libretti collection of Maestro N.G. (Natale Gallini) of Milan, was acquired by the Boston Public library in 1967. Of the libretti from the 17^th-19^th centuries that make up this extensive collection on Italian operatic production, two thirds fall in the 1800’s. Lists of performers, composers, writers, set designers, and theaters (with location) create a marvelously well-rounded history of Italian lyrical drama. Because many of the libretti also contain descriptions of the dances that either preceded or followed the opera, much historical information on the ballet can be culled from this collection. In 1967, the library acquired 1,112 Italian ballet synopses dated from 1769 to 1900, which nicely complement the libretti group. G.Libretti is the call number for this collection.

JUVENILE COLLECTION (500 volumes). Although the special collection of books specifically classed as "juvenile" numbers but 500 volumes, this gives a poor indication of the amount and variety of material to be found in the Rare Book Department. The earliest are two "Donatus leaves" from the popular Latin schoolboy grammar, originating in Holland in the middle of the 15^th century. Among the various American collections are nearly 100 versions of the New England Primer and its competitors, some fifteen miniature or "Thumb" Bibles, and such rarities as Janeway’s A Token for Children" (Boston 1782) and Perrault’s Tales of Passed Times by Mother Goose (New York, 1795). For an interesting discussion of the many school and college books found in the Prince Library, see Samuel Eliot Morison’s Article in More Books, v. XI (1936), pp. 77-93. English and Scottish juvenilia include more than 250 early nineteenth century chapbooks with such titles as The Universal Battledore, The Invisible Prince, A New Middle Book, and The Infantile Cabinet of Beasts. Illustrated books include numerous works of Kate Greenway, Walter Crane, and Randolph Caldecott.

L'ADUNATA COLLECTION. See Fondo L'Adunata Collection.

LEWIS (JOHN A. ) COLLECTION. In 1890, the Library received the collection of early American imprints formed by John A. Lewis, a Barnstable native and at various times a newspaper and railroad man. At his wife’s death, a bequest of money provided a trust fund to add appropriate material. Lewis’ library contained more than two hundred publications by Increase and Cotton Mather, including Increase Mather’s The Wicked Man’s Portion (1675), sermons, and such rarities as Hubbard’s Narrative of the Trouble With the Indians in New England with the "White Hills" map (1677), Underhill’s Newes from America (1638), and the Massachusetts Psalter (1709).

LEWISSON (WALTER UPDIKE) COLLECTION OF WASHINGTONIANA (ca. 6,000 volumes). In October 1930, the Library received a major collection of Washingtoniana from a bequest by Walter Updike Lewisson. It is comprised of books, pamphlets, broadsides, and newspapers, and includes more than a dozen editions of Washington’s Farewell Address, first printed in 1796, and approximately 220 of the eulogies and funeral orations delivered during the official period of mourning Washington’s death between December 1799 and February 1800. This last group is representative not only of contemporary American oratory, but of local printing in small towns as well as major centers. Although much of the collection, especially such pamphlet and ephemeral material as auction catalogs, meeting announcements of the Sons of the Revolution, publications of the Mount Vernon Association, etc., remains uncataloged, limited access is available through Lewisson’s own card catalog. The collection has been described in the library’s bulletin, More Books (1931), pp. 49-57.

LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL COLLECTION. See Artz Collection

MAP COLLECTION (ca. 500 atlases and 2,300 maps). Rare and early maps and atlases of Europe, the Americas as well as the world are housed in the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts. Researchers can consult European and world maps from 1634 to the mid-18^th century, and American maps, particularly New England, Massachusetts and Boston, up through the mid-19^th century. Early editions of the work of the greatest names in the field of cartography include Ptolemy, Ortelius, Mercator, Jansson, Visscher, W.J. and J. Blaeu, Hondius, J. Speed, and Van de Aa. The 1536 printing of Rudimentum novitiorum containing the earliest non-Ptolemaic maps, copies of Des Barre’s Atlantic Neptune (1777), The English Pilot (1738), John Seller’s A Mappe of New England (1676), and Bonner’s The Town of Boston in New England (1722) are among the great works which trace the geography of the world, both old and new. Other names of importance to local historians, genealogists, and real estate owners are Bowen, Sanborn, Bromley, Beers, Waller, and Hopkins. A fine collection of the O.H. Bailey and Company bird’s eye view maps of the 19^th century give marvelously detailed descriptions of towns all over America.

In addition to the printed map collection, the library has strong holdings in manuscript maps. A 17^th century Portolano by Roussin covers the Americas and Africa, a large group of 18^th and 19^th century plans and drawings depicts American lands and towns, and five original maps by surveyor William Taylor that focus on local places such as the Mill Dam, Jamaica Pond, and Deer Island. Of particular local interest are William Bowditch’s copies of plans of various parts of Brookline and Roxbury as well as a fine chart in color of Boston harbor done by Phillip Wills, ca. 1688. All except manuscript maps are included in the main research catalog of the Library. In addition, the original map catalog and shelf list is available in Rare Books.

MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS. The Boston Public Library's collection of medieval manuscripts now numbers well over 250 items. Although the major part of the collection is comprised of religious and devotional texts, there are also a number of secular and scientific titles. Among the former you will find books of hours, breviaries, lectionaries, antiphonaries, bibles, missals, psalters, texts from the Church fathers and several single leaves of miniatures. Among the secular authors represented are Cicero, Lactantius, Manilius, Martial, Petrarch, Seneca, and Vegetius.

A full description of our holdings for items purchased before 1963 can be found in Seymour de Ricci's census (1935) and its supplement (1962). Any item purchased and cataloged after 1980 will be found on our on-line catalog. The department also has its own in-house inventory of the complete collection of manuscripts.

MUNN (JAMES BUELL) COLLECTION. The eminent Harvard Professor of English James Buell Munn collected this scholarly gathering of 25,000 volumes. The collection has strong holdings in Biblical literature, poetry, 18th- and 19th-century French literature, and 20th-century first editions including such significant authors as Ernest Hemingway and T. S. Eliot. Much of the collection has been dispersed in the Library stacks and can be found in the Research Library Catalogs, with the first editions and rare items (2,200 volumes) housed in the Rare Books Department.

MUNSTERBERG (HUGO) COLLECTION. This collection contains 3,000 letters by statesmen, authors, educators, and other major figures from the late 19th- and early 20th-century. Born in Prussia in 1863, Munsterberg was an important research pioneer in experimental psychology and taught at Harvard University for many years.

PARKER (THEODORE) COLLECTION (16,899 volumes). Theodore Parker, theologian, Unitarian clergyman, and ardent abolitionist, bequeathed his books to the Boston Public Library in 1860. A tireless scholar’s library, it is rich in works of religion, philosophy and law, grammars and dictionaries in scores of languages, anti-slavery tracts, monumental series such as Migne’s Patrologia (1844-1855), and rarities including the Speculum Quadraplex by Vincent de Beauvais, published between 1473 and 1476. Among Parker’s devoted friends were Matilda Goddard and Caroline Coddington Thayer, each of whom presented the Library with the complete writings of Parker, including magazine articles and newspaper clippings. Although there is no separate printed catalog of the Parker library, most of the volumes and pamphlets are included in the 1866 First Supplement to the Index…to Books in Bates Hall. The manuscript catalog of the Parker library is under Ms.f.Am 1381 on Rare Books microfilm reel 1045.

PRINCE (THOMAS) COLLECTION (ca. 2,000 volumes). Rev. Thomas Prince, former pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, bequeathed his library of some 2,000 volumes to the church in 1758. In 1866, it was deposited in the Boston Public Library. This collection, rich in New England history, contains the first fruits of the American press: two copies of the Bay Psalm Book of 1640, Eliot’s Indian Bible of 1663, and a multitude of Increase and Cotton Mather tracts. Additional strengths include European and classical literature, theological works, and numerous 16^th and 17^th century editions of the Bible, Greek and Latin grammars and other works considered indispensable for the library of the 17^th century scholar and clergyman.

The published catalog of the collection is divided into three parts: the first and second deal with American and foreign printed works; the last consists of the Mather, Cotton, and Prince papers, many of which have been transcribed in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s collections.

PRINTING HISTORY COLLECTION (6,000+ volumes). This collection is the result of the first Keeper of Rare Books, Zoltan Haraszti’s farsighted interest in and purchase of hundreds of incunabula and products of the fine French press. Incunabula, the Latin term for "things from the cradle," are books printed before January 1, 1501. The library has approximately 525 titles in this category. These books became the nucleus of this collection well in excess of 6,000 volumes spanning the centuries from Gutenberg’s time with a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible (1450-55) to the present with major works from the Aldine, Anthoensen, Ashendene, Cuala presses. This rich resource includes Caxton’s Golden Legend (1527), Gutenberg’s Catholicon (1460), "Donatus leaves" from the fifteenth century, Biblia Pauperum (ca. 1470), as well as fine representative collections of Strawberry Hill, Elzevir, Dolmen, Golden Cockerell, and Kelmscott imprints, and the publications of many local presses; Penmaen, Janus, Four Zoas, and Riverside, to name but a few.

Access to the fine press collection is provided through the catalog and a series of informal lists that also cover types of bindings and binders. An extensive imprint file groups books by place and date of publication.

SABATIER (PAUL) COLLECTION OF FRANCISCANA (ca. 2,000 volumes). After the death of Paul Sabatier in 1928, the Boston Public Library purchased his library on the life and work of St. Francis of Assisi from his widow. This is the working collection of a major scholar containing early manuscripts (both original and Sabatier’s many careful copies of those in European collections) and thirty-eight volumes from the 15^th and 16^th centuries, as well as hundreds of important later works, Franciscan periodicals, and numerous off-prints and presentation copies of books from admiring students of St. Francis throughout the world. Many of these items contain Sabatier’s extensive manuscript notes. A description may be found in More Books (1931), pp. 273-286.

SACCO AND VANZETTI. See Felicani (Aldino) Sacco and Vanzetti Collection.

SACCO AND VANZETTI DEFENSE COMMITTEE PAPERS. See Felicani (Aldino) Sacco and Vanzetti Collection.

THAYER COLLECTION (ca. 400 volumes). Formed by the union of several gifts and bequests from the four Thayer sisters of Boston, this Victorian library is noteworthy for its many illustrated and extra-illustrated works of history and biography, including a set of Granger’ Biographycal History of England…(1824). Access to the hundreds of historical portraits is through a manuscript index in the Department. The Thayers devotion to Theodore Parker is manifested through a large number of his works and several scrapbooks of manuscripts and newspaper clippings relating to him. A catalog of the collection is found in the library’s Bulletin, v. 14 (no. 5 v. 6), pp. 33-93.

TICKNOR (GEORGE) COLLECTION (ca. 9,000 volumes). In 1871, the Boston Public Library received the private library of George Ticknor, scholar and bibliophile, Harvard professor of Spanish and French, and a founder of the Boston Public Library. The original bequest of some 3,907 volumes focused on Spanish and Portuguese literature and history. The catalog of the collection, published in 1879, incorporated many of Ticknor’s notes for his History of Spanish Literature. Today, expanded through the Ticknor Fund, the collection includes Spanish and Portuguese works on art, science, law, theology, language, and Latin America. It is especially rich in every phase of Spanish literature from early editions of Don Quixote (1605) to the manuscripts of Lope de Vega’s El Castigo sin Venganza (1631); from the earliest (Seville, 1502) edition of Celestina to the Obras of Sr. Juana Ines de la Cruz, the 17^th century Mexican poetess.

The collection is an important source for authors such as Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Benito Geronimo Feyjoo y Montenegro, Luiz de Camoens, Luiz Velez de Guevara, and Fernan Caballero. Rare historical and political works such as the Constituciones de Cataluna and Cinco Tratados(1493) by Alonso Ortiz, which contains the earliest reference to the discoveries of Columbus, are also found in this collection.

TRENT (WILLIAM PETERFIELD) COLLECTION OF DEFOE AND DEFOEANA (ca. 6,500 volumes). Early in 1929, the income from a number of trust funds was pooled to allow the Library to purchase the great collection brought together by William Peterfield Trent of Columbia University who for decades had worked on the life and writings of Daniel Defoe.

Besides multiple editions, issues, and states of the major works and hundreds of pamphlets ascribed to Defoe with more or less assurance, Trent had gathered thousands of pamphlets by the contemporaries of the age of William and Mary, Queen Anne, and George the First. The Library has made a systematic effort to fill the few gaps in the canon of Defoe’s own writings and continues to acquire political, religious, and literary pamphlet material from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially works by Dunton, Swift, Oldmixon, and Toland as well as numerous tracts dealing with the Hoadly and Sacheverell controversies. A catalog of the works by or attributed to Defoe in the Boston Public Library was published by G.K. Hall in 1966.

20^th REGIMENT COLLECTION (ca. 5,700 volumes). In 1896, the surviving members of the 20^th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, donated $10,000 remaining from funds collected for the marble memorial lion by Louis St. Gaudens for a special collection of books "of military and patriotic nature" with a major emphasis on the Civil War. Especially strong in regimental histories, in Confederate imprints, and in contemporary sheet music, southern as well as northern, the collection also includes ten scrapbooks of patriotic envelopes, a nearly complete run of the General Orders of the various Departments of the Union Army, and nine portfolios of the battle and camp photographs by Mathew Brady and A. J. Gardiner and other early photographers, as well as other pictorial material.

While works concerning other wars and military engagements are not as extensive, there are interesting items from the War of 1812 and the Mexican War and the monumental sets of official records of the 1^st and 2^nd Divisions of the A.E.F. Also included are 345 volumes of personal narratives and other works on World War I, the gift of Mary Boyle O’Reilly.

As part of their original gift, members of the 20^th Regiment Association donated copies of their own diaries, reports, and letters. To these have been added additional print and manuscript material pertaining to both the North and the South.

WEST INDIES COLLECTION (ca. 2,300 volumes; 2,800 plus manuscripts). Founded by the bequest of Benjamin P. Hunt in 1877, this collection of books, pamphlets, maps, and manuscripts relating to the West Indies, with emphasis on Haiti, has been greatly expanded in recent years. Printed material ranges from 16^th to 20^th centuries, including rare Haitian imprints from the Imperial Press, nearly 200 French documents concerning the colonies, numerous pilot guides, legal codes, and works on history, politics, and natural science.

Notable among the manuscripts received from Hunt is a three-volume journal, written by Thomas Howard between 1796-1798 while serving as an officer in the British army occupying Santo Domingo. Also of special interest are Hunt’s own extensive unpublished notes on Haiti as well as a grouping of 18^th century documents relating to the French occupation, and 19^th century papers of both the empire and the republic.

There is a hand-written annotated catalog of Hunt’s own library along with a typed checklist that brings together most of the Haitian manuscripts. The collection has been described in some depth in More Books (Oct. 1929, p. 313-321) and in the B.P.L. Quarterly (1959, p. 21-32, 131-142, 210-216).