The Talented Mr. Towles

Amor's Workshop 
   Although I do not read much fiction, my wife convinced me to read A Gentleman in Moscow and I am glad I did. She has just finished, Table for Two and I will soon start The Lincoln Highway. All of these books were written by Amor Towles and he produced them from the comfortable quarters pictured in this post. 

   The gentleman in Moscow is confined to a hotel for years. If one was placed under house arrest for a long period, Mr. Towle's place in Manhattan would be a comfortable place to be and there would be plenty to read. 

   Mr. Towles does a lot of background reading to get the facts needed for the fiction he writes, so one will find in his collection guides to Moscow and a set of encyclopedias from the 1930s which was used when writing Rules of Civility. He also has some first editions and some signed works, including a copy of Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize lecture. 

   Apart from recommending some books to read, this post is also another one about "private libraries." The last one was about Wilde's, see "Oscar's Library." 

Source: 
   The pictures are from: "Book Tour: The Author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway Guides Us Through His Personal Library," John Williams, Washington Post, May 18, 2024. An earlier profile is found in: "Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Gramercy Park," Joanne Kaufman, New York Times, Sept. 23, 2016.

The Bonus:

   Gentleman in Moscow, is recommended, but if you are unsure, there is a Wikipedia entry for it.
   If you would rather watch than read, it is available now as a streaming mini series on Paramount+. 

  The gentleman is played by Ewan McGregor. You may remember that McGregor is one of the men who rode a motorcycle from the very tip of South America to Los Angeles - see, "Long Way Up." 
  If, like Towles, you are interested in Bob Dylan, head to the University of Tulsa. See, "Bob Dylan." 

  

Oscar's Library

   This is another in the series relating to "private libraries." Among the others you will find information about the libraries of Mark Twain, Edward Gorey, Stalin and the late Professor Macksey who's collection was covered twice. There is even one about the furniture found in such libraries and the catalogues that were produced to list the books they contained. 

   There is a book about Wilde's library which has the title, Oscar’s Books: A Journey Around the Library of Oscar Wilde, in Great Britain and, Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde over here. Thomas Wright is the author of both books, but the titles may be the products of others in the marketing department. The point of books such as this one and the others in this series is that one may learn something from examining the books read, rather then the lives led.
   Unfortunately the the type of life Wilde was living led to the auctioning off of his library while he was in Holloway prison. A collection carefully collected was quickly ransacked and sold off to pay his legal fees. Using the auction catalogue pictured above, the author of Built of Books was able to determine the contents of Oscar's library and undertake the project of finding copies of all of the books and then reading them, which he has been unable to do, even though Oscar's collection was rather small. It consisted of around 2,000 volumes. Professor Macksey's contained over 50,000.

Oscar the Speed Reader
   Apparently, "Wilde was one of the speediest of speed readers. He claimed to be able to read both pages at once. 'He turned the pages [of a novel] fast to begin with,' a friend remembered, 'then faster and faster, and a little slower towards the end of the book. But he could not have been more than three minutes.' It is hard to believe that Wilde literally took three minutes to peruse an entire volume, but others confirm this report, and embellish it with the astonishing detail that he often chattered away on other subjects while he read."

Oscar's Memory
   He would demonstrate his quick reading skills and then submit to a test and "Wilde's memory became as legendary as his speed-reading." It is described as a "photographic" one and examples are provided of Wilde being able to recite long passages of both prose and poetry. "He regurgitated passages of Carlyle's The French Revolution, and declaimed line after line from the novels of Meredith. One friend described him reeling off sentences from Flaubert which seemed to 'unfold just like jewel-studded brocades'". 
   Those of you with good memories will recall that I have written about people with very good memories including, Professors Porson, Bloom and Chomsky, as well as William Empson and Chimen Abramsky, who also had a good library. Speed reading (and even Evelyn Wood) were also touched upon in "Reading Time (A Painful 5 Min.)

Single Author Journals
   Entire periodicals  devoted to particular authors have also been discussed in MM (see, e.g. "Periodical Ramblings (8)) and, of course, Wilde has one all to himself. Produced by "The Oscar Wilde Society", The Wildean: A Journal of Oscar Wilde Studies," is published twice a year. There is also an illustrated newsletter called Intentions which is published four times a year. Subscribe if you appreciate Wildean witticisms such as this: "Given sufficient notice, one can always be spontaneous."

The Bonus: 
   The author of Built of Books is clearly a fan of Oscar Wilde and books. The five thousand pound prize he was awarded for the proposal for his book about Wilde was spent at a Sotheby's auction for the purchase of Wilde's copy of Swinburne's Essays and Studies.

The Old Card Catalogue

    

   I have mentioned before that Western Libraries (and many other university libraries) are getting rid of books. One of the reasons for this is that the students value more the space, so the stacks are being removed to allow areas for the students to participate in various collaborative  endeavours. Now that I have put it that way, I do remember that in the old days students could be quite creative in the ways in which they engaged even between the stacks.

   Long before the books were discarded or placed in a remote storage area, the old card catalogue which one used to find them, was sent to the dumpster. There were some muted cries about that and concerns that one wouldn't be able to find the books, back when that mattered. There was also likely some fear among the aging professors that one might have to use some sort of computing gadget. At one university, one far older than Western, the decision was made to keep the old card catalogue as a valuable historical artifact (for an interesting article about why see: "The Old Card Catalog: Collaborative Effort Will Preserve Its History," Anne E. Bromley, University of Virginia News, Dec. 9, 2019.)

   The card catalogues were removed and are now not missed. Although I have been sorry to see the books disappear, the electronic catalogue works well and the dwindling number of books and journals can be easily found from the comfort of your home on a snowy evening, while the library is closed. Now, when using the Western catalogue, one can even determine if a book is in one of the other Ontario universities (or in a storage facility) and it can be retrieved. 

   There are still catalogues in Western Libraries, just not wooden card catalogues. They exist in the form of books which list the contents of various libraries. Many are the catalogues of  personal libraries, while others reveal the contents of libraries at other institutions. One can find at Western the Catalogue of the Library at Kildalton Castle and even the Catalogue of the Library of the University of Virginia, mentioned above. It is the catalogue of books found in that library in 1828.  There are many, many others and a Baker's Dozen are listed below. I thought it might be useful to record some of them since they are likely to go the way of the old card catalogue.

Catalogue of the library of George Perkins Marsh.
Catalogue of the library of the late Hon. Rufus Choate. 
A catalogue of the library of the late John Duke of Roxburghe
Catalogue of the library of John Gray, Haddington
Catalogue of the Library of the William Henry Barrett Estate
Catalogue of the music library of Vincent Novello,
Catalogue of the music library of Charles Burney 
Catalogue of the library of the late Lord Byron 
Catalogue of the Early English Books of John L. Clawson
A Descriptive Catalog of the Private Library of Thomas B. Lockwood
Catalogue of the library of Robert L. Stuart.
A catalogue of the library of George Santayana
A catalogue of the Library of Thomas Baker

   So what? Well, some of these are of interest to scholars. That does not mean they are of interest to people like us, but below, in a bit, I will try to come up with a few samples for those of us with lower brows. As for the scholars, many are interested in understanding how particular intellectuals came up with their ideas. What those thinkers read, may provide a clue. If, for example, you are wondering about  Adam Smith and his "invisible hand" you can re-trace his reading and look for it. Western has several catalogues of his library and even A Full and Detailed Catalogue of Books Which Belonged to Adam Smith: Now in the Possession of the Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo!  One of the reviewers of Mizuta's Adam Smith's Library: A Catalogue, concludes that, Mizuta’s work is highly recommended for all libraries collecting the great products of UK civilization (perhaps not such a great plug in our post-colonial times.) So, professors used such books and libraries acquired them. 

   Among the samples of catalogues above, you may have noticed that two are related to music library collections and often personal libraries were highly specialized.  In many cases, the catalogues came into existence when the contents of private libraries were being sold. When John L. Clawson's collection was sold in 1926, $642,687 was collected. He was from Buffalo as was Thomas B. Lockwood and you can learn more about Lockwood's books at the Rare & Special Books Collection at the University at Buffalo. 

 The books listed in the Catalogue of the Library of the William Henry Barrett Estate, would have been found closer by, in Port Dover.  Mr. Barrett learned in 1926 that he had inherited a huge amount of money and the books of Quinton Dick who had died years before in Ireland. With the money he built a replica of the Irish Clonmel Castle and, you can stay at the one in Port Dover. Here is the link. Apparently, many of the books ended up at the ROM. As I mentioned, there are things of interest to be found in these books, even if one is not a scholar. 

Sources:

  More can be learned about William Henry Barrett at the Clonmel Castle site. This article described the events at the time of the inheritance: "Port Dover Farmer Wins Court Round for Large Estate: Total May Be Millions," Globe and Mail, July 2, 1926. This useful bit is found at Memorybc.ca: 

William Henry "Harry" Barrett was born in Port Dover, Ontario in 1864. He left Port Dover in 1886, travelling west to Spallumcheen to help his Uncle Harry run the 320-acre Mountain Meadow Ranch north of Otter Lake. He married Julia Rebecca "Nonah" Pelly in 1894, and they had three sons. Shortly after the birth of his third child in 1898, Nonah died. Harry left for Port Dover, taking his two sons with him and leaving the new baby with his wife's parents. Harry returned to school in Port Dover, becoming a veterinarian and a sheep rancher. In 1925, he inherited $2.5 million from his grandfather, the founder of the Bank of Ireland. In 1929, he built Clonmel, modelled after an Irish country house. He and his second wife lived there until their deaths in 1942 and 1970 respectively.

The depression was not such a bad thing for Mr. Barrett.

   As for the importance of these catalogues see: On the Private Collecting of Book Catalogues," Wm. P. Barlow Jr. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Vol. 102, No. 4 (December, 2008), pp. 547-555

 See also this seminar: "Private Library Catalogues as Sources for Library History: An Appreciation," Meghan Constantinou (held at the Grolier Club, New York.)

The Bonus:

   The collection of books in the private library of William Henry Barrett, should not be confused with the one of John Davis Barnett, upon which the collections of the Western Library were built. About that see: "The Forgotten Story of J.D. Barnett: Western Libraries' 'Founding Father'," by Carmen Mallia. Western Gazette, Sept. 26, 2018.

   That Western has such a solid collection of book catalogues can be explained by the fact that many of them were held in another Western Library that has disappeared. The records for many of these books indicate they were donations from the "William J. Cameron Reading Room" which was in the old Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS). While many of the books in that collection were discarded, these were kept. Some others were purchased by Dr. John Clouston, with whom I had the pleasure to work. They were donated to King's University College Library and are described here:

SAMUEL & MADELINE CLOUSTON COLLECTION

This impressive collection of 15th — 18th-century imprints was acquired largely from the former rare book collection of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Western Ontario. The items were purchased by the former Chief Librarian, Dr. John S. Clouston (1993 -2005), and gifted to King’s University College in 1998. Named in honour of his late parents, it consists of works of history, literature, biography, philosophy, theology and travel, chiefly from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the Low Countries.

   The Western Libraries did snag a collection from the library of Gregory Clark and you can find them all described here: Angling Books: The Gregory Clark Piscatorial Collection. 

   I did a post earlier about Mark Twain's Library.

   Surprisingly enough, such private libraries continue to exist. See: "Private Libraries That Inspire: Difficult to Build and Maintain, These Elaborate Spaces Contain the Passions and Obsessions of Their Owners." By Katy McLaughlin, Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2019.

Forget the Dewey Decimal System: Entrepreneur and inventor Jay Walker’s 25,000 books, manuscripts, artifacts and objects are organized in his personal 3,600-square-foot library “randomly, by color and height,” he said. When he walks into his library, part of his Ridgefield, Conn., home, the room automatically “wakes up,” glowing with theatrical lighting, music and LED-lit glass panels lining various walkways. He finds items to peruse by a system of memory, chance, and inspiration, he said....

Edward Gorey's Library

There is a new biography of Gorey and a review of it in the Dec.10th issue of the New Yorker, the cover of which consists of Gorey's cats. I was not particularly interested in Gorey, but am more so now. I recall seeing many of his illustrations over the years on book covers and in children's books, most of which are now probably deemed inappropriate (The Gashlycrumb Tinies... for example: "I is for Ida who drowned in a lake" - "J is for James who took lye by mistake"). The title of the new biography is illustrated above.
Early in the review Gorey is quoted as having said, "I can't go out without buying a book," and later the reviewer notes that he ended up with 21,000 of them. As you probably don't know, I have posted before about "boys with books" (Mailer and Roth) and a "bloke with books" (Colin Wilson) and another guy who also had around 20,000 (Chimen Abramsky). So, I wondered what happened to all those Gorey books.
If you go to the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, MA you won't find them, but you will find a book store, a good biography and some interesting exhibits. It looks like a good place to visit if you are on your way to the Cape. If you are in the general area you should also visit the Wadsworth Atheneum (in Hartford, CN) since Gorey gave them many of the other things he collected and they often stage exhibits and lectures related to him.
His books are now located on the other coast, however, which is a good thing given the weather. Visit San Diego State University and you will find 26,000 volumes in the "Edward Gorey Personal Library" held in the archives. If you click on that link you can find out why they ended up there, listen to a lecture and read the blog Goreyana.
If you prefer not to leave the country you can check out the Gorey collection at McGill: “The collection of the American designer, illustrator and author Edward Gorey (1925-2000) consists of books by and/or illustrated by him. The books, of which there are eighty-eight volumes, are mostly first editions and date from the period ca 1950 to 1980. As well, there is a small body of ephemera including book jackets by and articles about Gorey.”
If you are still not satisfied you can go to the Columbia University Library which has material donated by the architect and attorney, Andrew Alpern, who spent over 50 years collecting Gorey books and memorabilia. The collection "is chock-full of everything from books, postcards, photographs, and newspaper clippings to T-shirts, pot holders, mugs, and plastic party cups—all decorated with Gorey’s illustrations." For an interesting article about Alpern see: "A Treasure Trove of Edward Gorey," Eve Bowen, New York Review of Books, Aug. 4, 2012.



Post Script
Curious about what the university close by (Western) might have by and about Gorey, I looked and was surprised to find as many books as I did. Part of the explanation relates to the fact that many are held in the LGBTQ "Pride Library". As an aside, although the author of the new biography apparently focuses a lot on "gayness" the reviewer does not think it important. Nor did Gorey.

I noted by the way that the name of the donor of some of the Gorey books is given as: Empress II Madison Hart, Royal Imperial Sovereign Court of London and of Southwestern Ontario.
Surely the Empress is worth a post.....when I get time.