Professor Macksey's Library (Again)

I Should Be Tweeting

   You may recognize the wonderful room above which was at the top of a post I did back when Professor Macksey passed away a couple of years ago (see: Professor Macksey's Library.) If you do recognize it, it is probably not because you ever look at this blog, but because you saw a tweet about it on Twitter. Apparently it went viral and I am sorry to say that it is unlikely that I was the source of this virus, since I don't think the tweeter mentioned MM. Perhaps he would have, but the number of words he can use is limited. Here is the story about it:

"A Library the Internet Can’t Get Enough Of: Why Does This Image Keep Resurfacing On Social Media?" Kate Dwyer, New York Times, Jan. 16, 2022
"On the first Tuesday of the year, the author and political activist Don Winslow tweeted a photograph of an avid reader’s dream library. Bathed in the buttery glow of three table lamps, almost every surface of the room is covered with books. There are books on the tables, books stacked on mahogany ladders, and books atop still more books lining the shelves of the room. “I hope you see the beauty in this that I do,” Mr. Winslow wrote in the tweet, which has been acknowledged with 32,800 hearts."

Apparently, the tweet also garnered 1,700 comments. My post has been read by about 30 people since September, 2019, none of whom chose to comment. Nor did any choose to complain, I might add, and I am not bitter about my lack of popularity. I would like to suggest, however, as all news broadcasters now do, that if you want "BREAKING NEWS" about such things and wish to be the first in your coterie to know about them, you should consult MM. 

  By the way, the article (not the tweet) also included the information below. If you add it to what I provided earlier about Professor Macksey, you will know much more than the Twitter users who just viewed the photograph:

Dr. Macksey’s book collection clocked in at 51,000 titles, according to his son, Alan, excluding magazines and other ephemera. A decade ago, the most valuable pieces — including first editions of “Moby Dick,” T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock and Other Observations,” and works by Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley — were moved to a “special collections” room on the Hopkins campus. After Dr. Macksey’s death, a S.W.A.T. team-like group of librarians and conservationists spent three weeks combing through his book-filled, 7,400-square-foot house to select 35,000 volumes to add to the university’s libraries.

This all happened at Johns Hopkins, by the way.

Professor Macksey's Library

    In July of this year there were many obituaries for Professor Richard A. Macksey who taught for over six decades at Johns Hopkins University. Apparently he was a legendary and inspirational teacher. Clearly he was a great collector of books. His library of approximately 70,000 of them is pictured above.






Sources:
"Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins Professor With Capacious Mind and Library, Dies at 87, " Matt Schudel, Washington Post, July 26, 2019.
"Dr. Macksey (pronounced “Maxie”) was a wide-ranging scholar and polymath whose expertise extended from ancient and modern literature — in at least six languages — to medical history, biophysics, critical theory and film. He had joint appointments in Johns Hopkins’s School of Arts and Sciences and the medical school, where he helped design a curriculum that included writing and the humanities."
"He also was a founder of what is now the Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore and volunteered to work in the night shift at a free book exchange. He seemed to subsist on three hours of sleep and pipe tobacco."
"Dr. Richard A. Macksey, A Legendary Johns Hopkins University Professor, Polymath and Noted Bibliophile, Dies," Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, July 25, 2019.
"At home, the center of Dr. Macksey’s life was his library, which came about after he and his wife decided to convert the garage of their 1921 Guilford home into a library measuring 16 feet by 28 feet, and whose walls contained shelves that rose 15 feet to the ceiling. In spite of the massive size of the room, which had a Palladian window and a heat pump to protect the books from humid Baltimore summer, his library of an estimated 70,000 books spilled onto tables and rose in piles from the floor, making it the largest private library in the state."
"Richard Macksey, 'A One-of-a-Kind Intellectual Giant' Dies," Rachel Wallace, HUB, July 23, 2019.
"When Hopkins Alums Think of the Humanities, They Think of Richard Macksey," HUB, July 23, 2019.  This is a profile of Professor Macksey that appeared originally in the Johns Hopkins Gazette on June 21, 1999.  The picture of Macksey is from this article.
"Farewell Richard Macksey, Legendary Polymath and 'The Jewel in the Hopkins Crown,(1931-2019)" Cynthia Haven. From "The Book Haven", her blog at Stanford.

[Once again, no links are provided because of the likely instability of many of them and because some sources may be behind a firewall. If you google, them you can verify the sources.]

Post Script:
This bad news for Hopkins is offset to a great degree by this good news:
"Bloomberg Gives $1.8 BILLION to Johns Hopkins for Student Aid," Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, Nov. 18, 2019