Algernon Charles Swinburne Exhibit

The library was highly honored in February by being selected by Mr. and Mrs. John S. Mayfield for an exhibition of rare books and related material from their extensive Swinburne collection. This exhibit displayed for the first time the Mayfield collection of one hundred and one copies of the first edition of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon published in London in 1865. Several of the volumes in the exhibit contain inscriptions by Swinburne and were presented by him to important persons in England. Seventy-eight are in the original bindings with the circular decorations designed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Several are in beautiful fine bindings by Zaehnsdorf, Aurifex, Riviere, and Sangorski & Sutcliffe. The exhibit also displayed several later editions of Atalanta, a Kelmscott printing presented to Swinburne by William Morris, some Swinburne letters, and related art and artifacts.

At the opening of the exhibit on February 24 Professor Terry Meyers of the College of William and Mary gave an interesting talk on Swinburne. Meyers is co-editor of the forthcoming variorum edition of Swinburne's poems.

Swinburne bibliographers, booksellers, and library catalogers for more than a hundred years had assumed that only one hundred copies of the first edition of Atalanta in Calydon were printed. In a recent article by Mr. Mayfield entitled "A Swinburne Collector in Calydon," in The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Winter 1980 issue), he describes his thirty year quest to assemble one hundred and one copies of the first edition.

John Mayfield is the author of many articles and books on English and American literature, and he has lectured at universities in the United States, England and Japan. He has assembled extensive collections of the books and manuscripts of Swinburne, Byron, Browning, Shelley, Joyce, Bridges, Powys, Lanier, Tarkington, Caldwell, Mencken, and many other English and American writers. He is Librarian of the Army and Navy Club in Washington, Curator Emeritus of Manuscripts and Rare Books at Syracuse University, and a member of the Grolier Club, Rowfant Club, Manuscript Society, and Bibliographical Society of America. He is actively serving the Georgetown University Library as Consultant for Manuscripts and Rare Books, and as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Library Associates.

Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield extend a cordial invitation to anyone interested in doing research in their collections of English and American books, letters, and manuscripts.