A Gentleman's Library

Early English anti-Catholic tract, 1678, in the Adelman gift

It's not perhaps what the FBI had in mind when it was actively seeking to review library use records, but it's nonetheless true that a collector's library reveals much about its creator's aims and hopes and values, and the happy juxtaposition of taste and scholarly curiosity often makes for a whole greater than the sum of its parts. When an academic library finds itself in unexpected possession of such a collection, the results are almost always gratifying; the recent gift of his collection by Library Advisory Council member Maurice Adelman proves to be very much a case in point.

Among the 1,000 or more printed items in the collection are a sizable number relating to the history of Catholicism in Great Britain, ranging from "recusant" publications of the seventeenth century to more recent biographical studies and histories of institutions such as Stonyhurst. In this case, the backbone of the Adelman library matches and strengthens an area of obvious interest to Georgetown. But it's in the fleshing out of the collection that serendipity prevails, as in the case of Ronald Knox, where our already strong holdings are enriched and brought nearly to completeness by items in the Adelman gift, including such treasures as a dedication copy of Knox's Memories of the Future (1923) with the caustic inscription by the dedicatee "This belongs to Laura Lovat, whoever steals it goes to Hell." Then again, Willa Cather's is not a name one often thought of in connection with Georgetown: it may be so now, however, with former library holdings much enlarged by a handsome run of first editions in the Adelman gift, including Cather's first book, April Twilights (1903), and further books and an autograph letter in the most recent gift from the Biddle library. And much the same can be said of Julia Ward Howe, and Sarah Helen Whitman, and Agnes Repplier, in all of whose cases the Adelman runs of first editions have brought our holdings much nearer to completeness. One final instance involves an artist in whom we've been interested for some time, the wood engraver Clare Leighton; how pleasing to find a long series of her own books, of books by others illustrated by her, and even two original engravings! The list could be extended, but the point is clear. This is a collection that's found its proper home.