History of Special Collections @ Colby

  • INTRO
    • Goals
    • Student Scholars Wanted
    • Acknowledgments
    • Contact Us
  • CHRONOLOGY & CONTEXT
    • What Happened (early on)
      • The First Library & Edward Hall
      • The “Rare Book” Section (early 1930s)
    • Our Chronology (1935-1975)
    • Some Context
  • THE PEOPLE
    • Curators
      • Carl Jefferson Weber (Curator 1940-1958)
      • Richard Cary (Curator 1958-1975)
    • Librarians
      • N Orwin Rush (Librarian 1936-1945)
      • Gilmore Warner (Librarian 1945-1947)
      • James Humphry III (Librarian 1947-1957)
      • John R McKenna (Librarian 1957-1964)
      • Kenneth P Blake, Jr (Librarian 1964-1973)
      • Eileen M Curran (Acting Librarian, 1973-1976)
    • Other Colby People
      • Ernest C Marriner ’13
      • Frederick A Pottle ’17
      • Carroll A Wilson ’40 LLD
      • Franklin Winslow Johnson (President 1929-1942)
      • Julius Seelye Bixler (President 1942-1960)
      • Robert Edward Lee Strider II (President 1960-1979)
    • The Colby Library Associates
    • Highlighted Donors
  • HIGHLIGHTED COLLECTIONS
    • Rare Book Collections
      • Early Books
      • Thomas Hardy
      • Book Arts
      • The Rubáiyát
    • Personal Libraries
      • Library of Edwin Arlington Robinson
      • Library of Thomas Sergeant Perry
      • Library of Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer
      • Library of James Augustine Healy
      • Library of Ben Ames Williams
    • Manuscript Collections
    • “A Recent Accession”: The Colby Library Quarterly

Personal Libraries

John Quinn bookplate
Well-known bookplate of New York lawyer-collector John Quinn, designed by Jack B Yeats. Many volumes in our Healy Collection were purchased by Healy at Quinn’s 1924 auction.

This section of our site features the personal libraries associated with some of our major manuscript collections. Why is a personal library important? What does this collection tell us about the individual who developed it?

If your avenue of inquiry is a writer’s interests and influences, then her or his personal library can vastly increase your comprehension of the creative life and work. Inscriptions document relationships, annotations convey thought processes. Shelf marks suggest the library’s  organizational structure. Bookplates capture provenance and convey personal aethetics. A personal library contains many clues and nuances. As a body of literary materials, it is a primary source.

Although we highlight on this site our largest personal libraries, we also have over 50 volumes from Thomas Hardy’s library at Max Gate as well as books from the libraries of Vernon Lee, Celia Thaxter and others.

Explore Common Threads – and Student Scholarship – in our Manuscript Collections

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