College and Research Libraries


difficult to comprehend and impossible to 
condone, is that N e w Jersey precedes N e w 
Hampshire in the alphabetical listing of states 
in the book's section locating collectors geo-
graphically. It is conceded, to be sure, that 
N e w Jersey may stand before N e w H a m p -
shire in certain respects of a numerical char-
acter, but heretofore the alphabetical prece-
dence of the G r a n i t e State has, I believe, 
gone unchallenged. 

Private Book Collectors is, nevertheless, 
a valuable reference w o r k of particular inter-
est and utility to head librarians, special col-
lections directors, curators of rare books and 
manuscripts, exhibits officers, and others re-
sponsible for the development of library col-
lections.—Edward Connery Lathem, Dart-
mouth College Library. 

University of Virginia Library 
The University of Virginia Library, 1825-

1950: Story of a Jeffersonian Foundation. 
By H a r r y Clemons. F o r e w o r d by D u m a s 
M a l o n e . Charlottesville, University of 
Virginia L i b r a r y , 1954. xxii, 23 ip., illus-
trated. $5.00. 

" T h e y have nearly finished the R o t u n d a — 
the P i l l a r s of the Portico are completed and 
it greatly improves the appearance of the 
w h o l e — T h e books are removed into the 
L i b r a r y — a n d w e have a very fine collection." 
So w r o t e E d g a r A l l a n Poe to his foster father 
in Richmond in 1826. T h e University of 
V i r g i n i a w a s then in its second session, and 
young Poe w a s a student there. It w a s indeed 
a fine collection. N o university in A m e r i c a 
had started with a more c a r e f u l l y selected li-
brary. T h o m a s Jefferson, the founder of the 
University, had chosen most of the 8,000 vol-
umes listed in the printed catalog issued in 
1828, and he had planned the book collection 
as c a r e f u l l y as he had planned the buildings. 

F o r t w o decades a f t e r the highly com-
mendable start, however, the library received 
scanty support. Some of the early prosperity 
w a s regained in the 1850's, but then came the 
w a r — a n d Reconstruction—and a disastrous 
fire in 1895. T h e University remained open 
through it all, but not until its second century 
did the L i b r a r y begin to attain the stature 
which Jefferson had envisioned for it. 

T h e f u l l story of the vicissitudes of the 
University of Virginia library is told here by 

H a r r y Clemons w h o directed its activities so 
wisely f r o m 1927 until his retirement in 1950. 
T h e library's history divides easily into five 
distinct periods, and each of these periods 
forms a chapter in the book. 

C h a p t e r I covers the founding period, f r o m 
1819 to 1826, during which M r . Jefferson 
prepared lists of books to be ordered, secured 
funds f o r their purchase, and selected agents 
through whom they would be acquired. 

T h e years from the death of the founder 
in 1826 to the beginning of the C i v i l W a r in 
1861 are described by D u m a s M a l o n e in the 
f o r e w o r d as "a period of torpor." T h e U n i -
versity spent about $35,000 f o r "books and 
apparatus" before 1826, more than half of 
which certainly went f o r books. Funds for 
such purposes, however, w e r e small or non-
existent in the t w o decades immediately fol-
lowing, and most of the books received came 
as gifts. B u t with a substantial increase in 
enrollment in the 1850's came heavier de-
mands for books and larger appropriations for 
their purchase. It w a s during this prosper-
ous decade that a question about the adequacy 
of the rotunda f o r library purposes w a s first 
raised, a question which w a s to be heard 
many times in the eighty years which elapsed 
before permanent relief came in the form of 
the A l d e r m a n L i b r a r y . 

T h e third period, 1861-1895, began with a 
w a r and ended w i t h a fire. T h e library had 
survived the hazards of w a r and Reconstruc-
tion, and broad progress w a s being achieved 
when fire reduced the book collections f r o m 
56,000 to 17,000 volumes, and destroyed most 
of those selected by Jefferson. 

T h e significant feature of the fourth period, 
1895-1925, w a s the extraordinary response 
of alumni and friends to requests for gifts. 
W i t h i n ten years a f t e r the rotunda fire, the 
collection had g r o w n to 60,000 volumes. 
N o t e w o r t h y collections and handsome endow-
ments w e r e liberally sprinkled among the 
gifts, and by 1925 an endowment fund of 
$200,000 for books had been accumulated. 
B u t greater demands w e r e being made on the 
library, some from a department of graduate 
study whose program required that the library 
accept continuing responsibility for the selec-
tion and acquisition of material not hitherto 
necessary in an undergraduate curriculum. 

T h e most remarkable progress of the li-
brary came during the administration of the 

APRIL, 1955 221 



author, and he describes this in his character-
istically modest manner. Jefferson expected 
the library to be the heart and life blood of 
the University. U n d e r M r . d e m o n ' s guiding 
genius and w i t h the help of his " B o a r d of 
A l d e r m a n , " as he called his key assistants, the 
A l d e r m a n L i b r a r y has come close to achieving 
the stature which the founder's vision and 
personal efforts had established f o r it a 
century and a quarter before. 

L i b r a r y history has been neglected in the 
literature of scholarship. Academic libraries 
in particular have lacked chroniclers. T h e 
O l d Dominion's University L i b r a r y has had 
a particularly interesting history, and its 
publication is highly appropriate. N o one 
else could have told the story as w e l l as 
H a r r y Clemons, the tenth librarian of the 
University. H i s appointment at V i r g i n i a fol-
lowed a term as librarian and professor of 
English at N a n k i n g University in China, 
from which he w a s driven during the " N a n -
king Incident." T h e Chinese bandits forced 
him to decide between librarianship and a 
professorship of English, he says, by destroy-
ing his lecture notes. H i s story is told in the 
dignified prose of a man of letters, in a style 

all too rarely found in library literature. 
T h e volume is unencumbered by footnotes, 
but a single note at the end informs the reader 
that a f u l l y documented manuscript of the 
books has been deposited in the A l d e r m a n 
L i b r a r y and is available f o r examination. 

D u m a s M a l o n e has contributed an ad-
mirable f o r e w o r d in which he pays high and 
well-deserved tribute to the author and to 
the A l d e r m a n L i b r a r y . If Jefferson could 
return, M r . M a l o n e says, " H e w o u l d find the 
A l d e r m a n L i b r a r y , as thousands of students 
and hundreds of scholars have found it, a 
free and happy place. . . . T h e r e is more sun-
light . . . more w a r m t h and courtesy and sheer 
human kindness, than is commonly encount-
ered. M a n y have contributed to this spirit, 
of course, but the person most responsible 
for it is H a r r y Clemons, w h o with unerring 
instinct seized upon the best traditions of 
V i r g i n i a and of Jefferson and reincarnated 
them in an institution." 

T h i s volume which becomes an important 
milestone in the w r i t i n g of library history 
contains much of the spirit and w a r m t h to 
which M r . M a l o n e r e f e r s . — B e n j a m i n E. 
Powell, Duke University Libraries. 

T h e Graphic Image—Some Books about D r a w i n g s and Prints: the 
A n g l o - A m e r i c a n Tradition II 

English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh 
Centuries. By Francis W o r m a l d . N e w 
Y o r k , P r a e g e r , 1953. 83p. $6.00. 

Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and 
Seventeenth Centuries; A Descriptive Cat-
alogue with Introductions. P a r t I. T h e 
T u d o r Period. By A r t h u r M . Hind. C a m -
bridge, C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1952. 
$22.50. 

IVilliam Blake's Illuminated Books. A 
Census compiled by G e o f f r e y Keynes and 
E d w i n W o l f 2nd. N e w Y o r k , T h e G r o l i e r 
C l u b , 1953. 124P. $10.00. 
T h e three books to be reviewed here deal 

with drawings, prints and book illustrations 
in England. I had hoped to include them 
in my last review column in the October, 
1954, issue, which w a s devoted to the A n g l o -
A m e r i c a n tradition in bookmaking. H o w -
ever, so many books had to be included in 
that column that it became necessary to hold 
some over f o r another occasion. T h i s is 

one of the reasons w h y they w e r e not re-
viewed earlier (the other one being the pres-
sure of other obligations). 

O n e of the most interesting and most 
puzzling aspects of England's participation in 
the graphic arts of the W e s t e r n w o r l d is 
the sporadic nature of her contribution. 
W h e n seen in the broad perspective of a 
1000-year history, there is a curious pattern 
of high creativity abruptly followed by al-
most total sterility and vice versa. 

" I t is w e l l known that the condition of 
English art f r o m about the middle of the 
ninth to the middle of the tenth centuries 
w a s bad," states Francis W o r m a l d in his 
English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh 
Centuries. T h i s book, by the professor of 
paleography at the University of London, 
and f o r m e r l y assistant keeper in the British 
M u s e u m ' s D e p a r t m e n t of Manuscripts, re-
cords the first significant revival of the graphic 
arts in the British Isles a f t e r the stupendous 

222 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES