Anniversaries

1994 will be a red-letter year for the library as we reach the milestone of adding the two millionth volume to the combined collections of the main campus, medical, and law libraries. The exact date can't really be calculated with any security, but it will happen before the end of March. In light of that event, this column marks the first in an annual series which will highlight some of the significant, or possibly even mildly amusing, events that have graced the library's 198 years of history at Georgetown.

1934: The Holograph Manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

On the occasion of Mrs. Nicholas Brady's acceptance of the first honorary degree awarded to a woman by an American Jesuit university, the library in turn became the recipient of two fine literary manuscripts: the so-called "Crewe" manuscript of R. B. Sheridan's The School for Scandal, the one among several surviving manuscripts of the play which scholars regard as definitive with a presentation inscription in Sheridan's hand; and Mark Twain's holograph manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, still the library's greatest single treasure.

1884: The French Revolution

The library received its largest gift in 40 years when Rev. John McNally presented his collection of about 1,000 volumes of memoirs of participants and other contemporary publications relating to the French Revolution. (Any doubts about the significance of this gift should be put to rest by consideration of the following item.)

1874: Library Statistics

On September 22nd of that fateful year one John D. Champlin, Jr., representing Ripley and Dan's The American Cyclopaedia, sent to the library the first surviving request for statistics from an outside agency:

Dear Sir:

Will you please send me, for publication in the Cyclopaedia, a statement of the number of volumes in your library, the average annual rate of increase, and the date of foundation?

A pencilled note on Champlin's letter gives the answers: 28,000; annual increase 200; founded 1789 (which was optimistic, since there is no evidence of a library at Georgetown before 1796).

1844: The Levins Collection

The library's largest and greatest early gift was the 1,991-volume collection formed by Rev. Thomas C. Levins, a sophisticated and dedicated collector who has never received his due in the history of collecting in America. Rich in works by Jesuit authors, in scholarly editions of Scripture, and in substantial works in Levins' own fields of science and mathematics, the collection included as well 11 incunabula, first editions of works by Erasmus, and a host of other "great" books of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

1924: The First Librarian

Thanks to Archbishop Carroll's bequest and the aggressive collection building of Rev. John Grassi, S.J., Georgetown had a collection of books by 1824 sufficient to call for the appointment of a librarian (Grassi had operated as librarian part-time, while being president of the university). The choice fell on Rev. Thomas C. Levins, an Irish-born Jesuit bibliophile trained at the University of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, Levins had a propensity for offending the powers that were: dismissed from the Society, he left Georgetown for a tempestuous career as parish priest, journalist, and engineer in New York early in 1825.