What we collect
Rare Books
See also: Find Rare Books | Using the Collection
While building our research collection over the years, we have acquired many books which need special care and custody because their age, beauty or other qualities of rarity make them valuable as objects as well as for research. The criteria we use for deeming a book rare are:
- All monographs published before 1801, and serials which ceased before 1801.
- Books whose irreplaceability or uniqueness makes them rare:
- limited editions of value in respect of content;
- important association or autographed copies;
- first editions of significance;
- editions of special note, including pirated; and/or
- surreptitious editions.
- Books of aesthetic importance, including fine printing, illustration or binding, and special press books.
- Books with significant manuscript or other materials laid or tipped in.
- Special collections, containing both rare and non-rare material, which need to be kept together.
Books in these categories are gathered together in our Rare Books Collection, which offers a rich assembly of materials for the study of social and intellectual life in Europe before 1850. The main strength is in material relating to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, religion, drama, politics and economics. There is also some strength in linguistic, scientific and technical works, and in early and modern fine printing. English, Latin and the Romance languages predominate throughout the collection.
Australiana and works in Asian scripts are not included, but are housed separately in other sections of the Library.
There are about 70,000 books and pamphlets in the Rare Books Collection - most of which were acquired through the purchase of collections assembled by families, scholars or booksellers. Individual purchases have been made to complement these holdings. Reprints and microforms are also purchased but are housed in the general book and microform collections.
Formed Collections
The Rare Books Collection is made up of a number of major formed collections acquired from various sources, and kept as separate runs with a prefix identifying the collection, eg RB CLI for the Clifford Collection, RB Ec for the Kashnor Collection. Smaller collections and items acquired individually have been placed in group runs with prefixes such as RB MISC or RB MOD; there is also a Dewey-classified run.
The Library's Formed Collections within the Overseas (General) Collection are important for their thematic concentrations, as presented by the collector.
Some of the major, formed, rare book collections are:
- Alston Collection
- Clifford Collection
- David Nichol Smith Collection
- de Vesci Collection
- Pelli Collection
- Valente Collection
The Kashnor Collection
This collection of 4,774 books, 5,995 pamphlets and nearly 200 manuscripts covers the period from 1650-1834 and represents writings of and about the major British economic theorists as well as lesser, but related, figures. Included are the works of Josiah Child, Sir William Petty, Thomas Mun, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, J.R. McCulloch, Thomas Malthus, James Mill and John Stuart Mill, among others. The growth of the early labour and radical movements is well represented and there are many valuable individual volumes and pamphlets on these subjects. There is much useful material about the Owenite movement and, in particular, an excellent set of Robert Owen's works. The collection also contains valuable Chartist material.
The French Revolution
The Library's collection of material for the study of the French Revolution is extensive. A good deal of it consists of contemporary books, pamphlets and periodicals held in the Rare Books Collection.
In particular there is a collection of more than 11,000 pamphlets offering a fair cross-section of the types of political publications which circulated in France from about 1787-c.1810. Most of them date from the years 1789-1794 and contain speeches made in the various Revolutionary assemblies. Speeches of all the major orators are included, though they are not complete for any one of the Revolutionary leaders.
The Library also has some 400 pamphlets collected under the title La Révolution et les colonies, which supplement the major collection. They include some important pamphlets on events in the colony of St Domingue, particularly the slaves' revolt in 1791.
Microform material supplements the original material in these two collections. The Library has the Falls City Microcard reprints of Revolutionary pamphlets held in some major US libraries, as well as the microfilms of selected Revolutionary journals issued by the Association pour la Conservation et la Réproduction Photographique de la Presse.
Another related collection within Rare Books is the Jammes Collection of 135 books and pamphlets which were banned in France during the 17th and 18th Centuries. These publications give insight into the ideological trends and conflicts from which the French Revolution grew. Works by both major and minor writers are included, with Voltaire particularly well represented, and there are many decrees banning specific works.
The Jesuit Collection
The Jesuit Collection of 5,500 titles in approximately 8,200 volumes represents many features of Jesuit religious activity from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, with emphasis on the history of the Society of Jesus and its internal government, Jesuit missionary work, British ecclesiastical history, theology and works of Jesuit historians. Pre-1801 material is in the Rare Books Collection; the remainder is in the general collection.
The splendid coverage of the Jesuit aspect of the Catholic religion over four centuries makes the collection a valuable source for scholars, especially as it complements other Catholic material held, notably that in the Clifford Collection.
Bibliography and Typography
Works by early printers and presses are also held in the Rare Books Collection. These include Wynkyn de Worde's printing of Caxton's translation of the Legenda aurea, by Jacobus de Voragine (1529), Jean de Tourne's printing of L'Eneide de Virgile (1560), Hartmann Schedel's Liber cronicarum ("The Nuremberg Chronicle", 1493) and Werner Rolewinck's Fasciculus temporum (1484). A single leaf from the Gutenberg Bible (1455-1456) is also in the collection, as well as a modern facsimile of the complete Gutenberg Bible.
Books from modern presses are also bought as examples of fine typography. They are mostly in limited editions and are indicative of the kind of work being done by creative printers, particularly in the UK and USA. There are examples of the work of presses such as the Kelmscott, Nonesuch, Golden Cockerel, Lion and Unicorn, Rampant Lions, Dolmen, Basilisk, World's End, Whittington, Bird and Bull, and of the work of Hans Mardersteig, William Pickering and the Folio Society.
Modern facsimiles of early manuscript and printed works such as the Book of Kells and the Gutenberg Bible are also held.
More details on these named collections are available in C.A. Burmester's Guide to the Collections. Volume 1, 1975. 688p. ISBN 0 642 99029 8. Volume 2, 1977. 567p. ISBN 0 642 99093 X. Volume 3, 1980. 557p. ISBN 0 642 90110 4. Volume 4, 1982. 552p. ISBN 0 642 99286 X.
