The Paperless Society

It is not always the large donations that make me stop in my tracks. More often than not, it is the small treasures that people give us for safekeeping that I find the most interesting. This past year Gertrude Allan gave us an edition of the works of Robert Burns that had been in her family since being published in Glasgow in 1867. On a recent trip to Toronto, Mrs. Margaret Ward brought in an edition of Denis le Cartusien's Quatuor Hominis Novissima (Douai, 1627) which had been in her family for many years but no one knew its significance. A staff member was able to throw some light on the contents of this religious tract, one of over two hundred written by this Belgian theologian. Now, thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Ward and her family, this book has joined other early imprints held here.

Another fascinating example was the collection of books brought in by Professor Varpu Lindstrom. She had been doing research in a Finnish community in Saskatchewan, and found a cache of nineteenth-century Finnish imprints. Questioning the elders, she discovered these books had been brought over by the founding families when they emigrated to the area in 1891. Since restrictions were placed on the amount of baggage they were allowed to transport, their possessions had to be limited to what they felt they would need to start their new lives. Having to fend for themselves in all matters, including religion, the books reflect their need to maintain their faith. The donation includes a Finnish version of the New Testament, a Sunday School songbook, sermons, two works by Martin Luther and various other treatises on Christianity. The books have been heavily used over the past century and we are honoured that Professor Lindstrom felt that the Fisher Library should become their final resting place.

A touching donation came from the son-in-law of James Baillie, noted ornithologist and long-time staff member at the Royal Ontario Museum. Baillie's books and papers arrived many years ago and became a major resource for birders all over North America. Now, thanks to the generosity of Robert Wilson, we are able to see a more personal side of his life. This gift includes several dozen letters to his wife before their marriage, their wedding album, and family pictures.

Our exhibitions often remind people of treasures they have at home that might enhance our collections. Professor Willard Oxtoby's Experiencing India reminded Mrs. Betty Metcalfe of a book she thought might interest us. It was Charles R. Forrest's A Picturesque Tour Along the Rivers Ganges and Jumna printed in London in 1824. This handsome work contains magnificent illustrations of nineteenth-century India and is indeed a valuable addition to our holdings. Professor R.J. Revell also found inspiration in this exhibition, donating, among many other works, several volumes on travel in the Middle East, including Burton's Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mekkah (London, 1857) and Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt (London, 1803). Hearing about the exhibition, long-time Friend, Mary Williamson, wanted to know if a scrapbook of Indian scenes would be acceptable. No ordinary scrapbook, the work turned out to be filled with original sketches and watercolours of scenes in India and England, pressed plants and seaweeds, greeting cards and printed ephemera. Compiled by Grace Cripps during the years 1875 to 1880, it was a record of the time her father, John Matthew Cripps, spent as Deputy District Commissioner in Rawal Pindi.

A work with an interesting background came to us from Elizabeth Bacque who presented us with Claudio Tolomeo's Geografia (Venice, 1598). Not only is this a very nice addition to our early imprints, but it has the added feature of having been presented to her uncle, Verschoyle Blake, by Gilbert Bagnani. These two scholars lived near each other in the countryside north of Port Hope and shared common interests. Blake designed the renovations to Vogrie, the Bagnani's home, including the large living room which contained their book and art collections. As the Fisher Library, several years ago, was the grateful recipient of many of Professor Bagnani's books, we are especially pleased to be able to add this volume to our holdings.

An outstanding collection of some three hundred and seventy early printed books came to us this past year from Professor Ralph Stanton. We are now able to add four more incunabula to our growing collection of books from the cradle of printing, including a rubricated 1480 edition of Antoninus Florentinus, which is not recorded in any other Canadian institution. The range and variety of the gift means that we have now increased several collections in strength and depth at a time when many of these works have become very scarce in the market and very dear. Robert Brandeis, whose name has been featured in these reports for several years, also contributed to our incunabula holdings. His donation of Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae (1486) presents the popular story of the fall of Troy as serious history. Taken without acknowledgement from a long poem by the twelfth-century trouv�re, Beno�t de Saint More entitled Roman de Troie, this work was printed in Strassburg by a printer now identified as Georg Husner.

I rarely write about our small but growing map collection, but this has been a banner year. We all must remember the oversized maps that hung in classrooms, and the use and abuse they received. Last February, the heirs of Margaret Scrivener approached the Library with an offer to donate two such maps. They turned out to be very special examples. The unusually fine condition of Tremaine's Map of Upper Canada (Toronto, 1862) and Map of the County of Wellington, Canada West (Toronto, 1861) drawn by Guy Leslie and Charles J. Wheelock, indicates that they were not hung for any length of time. It was usual that, after a period of time, the sheer weight of the paper and canvas backing would have torn the map from its upper wooden dowel; this has not been the fate of these two fine pre-Confederation artifacts. A much smaller item came from the collection of Professor Peter Brock. The charming map of Garnsey ot [sic] Sarina is undated, but we were able to establish that it was actually detached from William Camden's Britannia (London, 1695) and thus is an interesting example of seventeenth-century British map-making. The modern era is represented by Lloyd Brown-John's donation. On a lecture trip in Germany, he found a collection of World War I and II German army field maps. The maps are very detailed and in excellent condition, although some were used in the field, as evidenced by manuscript annotations and overprints of troop dispositions.

On the scientific side, our Hannah Collection of books on the history of medicine was considerably enhanced in 1998 by several donations, highlighted by Mr. and Mrs. Murray Cathcart's gift of The Workes of Ambroise Paré (London, 1634), and by John Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum (London, 1640), which came from the collection of Professor Stephen Tobe. Nineteenth and twentieth-century engineering works selected by Dr. Norman Ball enriched our holdings in that field, while Howard Chapman added to our collection of architectural works.

One of the Fisher Library's fastest growing collections has been in the field of printing history. Through the generosity of Ron Peters, we were able to add several invaluable works: the completely engraved Universal Penman by George Bickham; Dard Hunter's Old Papermaking (one of only two hundred copies), and Hunter's rarest work: Papermaking in Indo-China. We are now the only library in Canada to have P.-F. Dupont's Essais Pratiques d'Imprimerie, of which only one hundred were printed and only three copies are recorded in North America. We now have all three issues of Matthias Koops's 1801 book on paper and papermaking, having been given this year the rarest 'waste paper' issue, and also the rare coloured version of J. Midolle's Album de Moyen Age and a large uncut copy of Saintomer l'ainé's Graphométrie (Paris, 1799). Works on calligraphy donated by Sandra Mark included a very nice copy of Hilary Jenkinson's The Later Court Hands in England (Cambridge, 1927) and a privately printed first edition of Stanley Morison's The Calligraphic Models of Ludovico degli Arrighi (Paris, 1926).

A gift from the estate of J.B. Salsberg augmented both the Robert Kenny and Spanish Civil War Collections. Professor J. Edward Chamberlin added to his previous gift of works by Caribbean authors and Sheldon Godfrey donated a very fine copy of John Lunan's Hortus Jamaicensis, printed in Jamaica in 1814. Professor Michael Millgate made a generous donation of American first editions, as did Cyril Greenland with a collection of works by and about Walt Whitman.

The works of Anglo-American poet, Thom Gunn, have long interested Professor Douglas Chambers, who this year donated a major collection of works by and about him. What makes this collection very valuable is that Professor Chambers had done extensive research on the periodical appearances of Gunn's poems and included these items in his gift. Numerous donations were made to the English and Anglo-Irish collections of literature, including works by John Masefield given by Brian Kennedy. Other gifts were received from Richard Landon, Dr. Robert Brandeis, Professor C.B. Chandler, Graham Cotter, Shirley Ferrier, Professor Peter Heyworth, Maxine McMullan and Norman Spears. Sandra Mark gave a collection of works by and about Louis MacNeice. MacNeice, who was a friend of Auden and Spender, provides the perfect bridge between the Endicott Collection of English Literature published between 1870 and 1930 and a soon-to-be established collection of English authors writing after that date.

As usual, we have received many donations of Canadiana this year. John Mappin continues to surprise us with the variety of Canadian pamphlets not yet held by this institution. Tex and Betty Mitchell, who operated Direct Mail Advertising Ltd., on Davenport Road for many years, printed many items for Thoreau MacDonald, and thanks to Mrs. Mitchell, we were the recipients of many more items to be added to that collection. Harold Kurschenska, a designer at the University of Toronto Press for many years, gave us a variety of finely printed books, works on Canadian private presses, limited editions of Canadian literature and printing artifacts. His generosity will not only benefit the Canadiana collections, but also the L.B. Duff Collection on printing history and several manuscript collections, including the Cooper & Beatty Archives and the Robert Finch Papers.

This last collection provides me with a perfect segue into a description of the 1998 manuscript donations. Professor Robert Finch loved bitter orange marmalade and used to receive pots of it as a present from Mrs. Mary Graham. As a thank you, Professor Finch wrote her a poem each year extolling the virtues of her gift. Professor and Mrs. Graham gathered their collection of twenty-one years of poems, had them calligraphed by C. Bailey and Walter Terry, and bound into a volume by Emrys Evans. This past year, Mary's Marmalade, a wonderful memento, joined the more serious poems already held in the Finch papers.

Professor Elspeth Cameron, who began to donate her personal archives last year, contributed a major part of her personal papers and research notes. This year, she included items relating to her controversial biography of Irving Layton and additional materials from her work on Hugh MacLennan and Earle Birney, as well as drafts of her memoir, No Previous Experience. Her background notes, correspondence and research materials for her nearly one hundred and fifty articles, lectures and presentations on modern Canadian literature and authors, were also included. Our thanks also go out to the ever-generous Margaret Atwood and to David Donnell, Douglas Fetherling, Mavor Moore, Sheila Mavor Moore, Karen Mulhallen, Frank Peers, David Solway and Paul Wilson, who added to our Canadian literature manuscript holdings. Eldon Garnett gave us his archive of Impulse magazine, 1975�1990. Charles Pachter donated his archives, which included not only family records, but also correspon-dence with Margaret Atwood concerning their collaboration on the design and printing of five of her works, including the very limited edition of the Journals of Susanna Moodie. Professor Josef Skvorecky retrieved from Czechoslovakia a major copybook of his early poems written between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight. Professor Phyllis Grosskurth turned over research notes and drafts for her biography of Lord Byron. Donald Jones added fifty more files on persons and places important in Toronto's history, and this collection is now being extensively used by researchers eager to learn more about the notable figures in this University's history. Canadian artist and author, Joe Rosenblatt, who first donated his papers in the early 1970s, has now presented us with thirty-six drawings.

Florence Drake continued her generosity by donating fifty-two bound manuscripts from the collection assembled by her late husband, Professor Stillman Drake. Written variously in Latin, Italian, French and German, they all relate to the history of science and philosophy and range in date from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. These unique items will further enhance the most extensive and most important collections in the history of science in Canada, and we are indeed grateful to Mrs. Drake. The very generous donors, Albert and Nancy Friedberg, added to their 1997 gift by a further one hundred titles. This major collection of Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books, which date from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, is enabling the Fisher Library to become a significant repository of Hebrew materials.

There were several new significant manuscript collections acquired during 1998. Suniti Namjoshi spent seventeen years teaching at this University, leaving in 1989 to pursue a career as a full time writer. She is now considered one of the most significant feminist writers of her generation. Her poetry and articles have been widely published and her ten books have given her an international reputation. Although based in England, we are pleased that she felt her years here were crucial to her development as a writer and that she selected us as the repository for her papers. Mrs. Robert Lawrence donated her late husband's research notes on English actors and theatrical companies touring Canada before World War II. Mr. Lawrence's research will be of great benefit to students of Canadian theatrical history. Francis Markstein wrote poems in English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish and produced translations from French, German, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish. His poems and essays on literary topics are now in the Fisher Library, thanks to the generosity of his widow, Aurelia. The gift of Mrs. Miriam Schneid Ofseyer consisted of the collection of her late husband, Otto Schneid. Professor Schneid was an art historian, writer and artist, and his archive includes manuscripts of his published and unpublished works, correspondence with artists and scholars, most of whom were active in Europe before 1939, as well as artists' catalogues, and books and pamphlets issued by his correspondents. This collection is a unique repository of information on pre-Holocaust European Jewish artists, many of whom perished during the war, and should prove to be an invaluable resource for historians of twentieth-century art.

To the over one hundred donors of gifts large and small, who added so much to the collections of the Fisher Library in 1998, our heartfelt thanks.

Luba Frastacky
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library