In 1979, the Department was bequeathed the library of Prof. W.D. Paden of the KU English Department, completing a gift begun in 1972. Particularly important in the Paden gift are his remarkable Tennyson collection with its rich resources for the bibliographical history of Tennyson's publications, and his strong holdings in the Pre-Raphaelites and A.E.W. O'Shaughnessy.
The Tennyson collection begins with his earliest published work, Poems by Two Brothers (1827). It includes a complete run of In Memoriam in all its numbered editions (1-20) and many subsequent unnumbered ones as well, many in multiple "copies." It also contains an impressive array--beginning with the first state of the first edition--of the various transmogrifications of the Idylls of the King, nicely illustrating both the literary and the bibliographical evolution of this monumental sequence of poems. Seven variant issues of the first edition of Enoch Arden provide examples of the fine distinctions of binding stamps, broken letters, sewers' marks and publishers' catalogues bound-in which are the raw material of the descriptive bibliographer's craft. Accompanying these is what the eminent bibliographer T.J. Wise called the "prepublication state," entitled Idylls of the Hearth, now known to be a Wise forgery.
This collection is an excellent example of a scholar's working library translated into a collection for the benefit of others who will continue the work.
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Collections Librarian - Richard W. Clement, 785/864-4334 rclement@ku.edu Department of Special Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, The University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045-7616 Phone: 785/864-4334 Fax: 785/864-5803 |
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