Two Irish Classics

From the estate of John A. K. Donovant of Falls Church, Virginia, the library has received a group of books including two great Irish classics. The first of these is the Evangeliorum quattuor codex Cenannensis (Berne, 1950), the famous Urs Graf edition of "The Book of Kells," a triumph of medieval Irish manuscript illumination, in the third volume of which Mr. Donovan's name is recorded in the list of original subscribers.

Written more than a millennium later but published earlier is the first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses to be printed in Britain (London: The Bodley Head, 1936). Clad in a full vellum binding designed by Eric Gill, the Donovan copy is one of 100 printed on fine paper and signed by the author. The book is altogether more handsome and better made than the first edition published by Sylvia Beach in 1922, which it now joins on Lauinger's rare book shelves.