In early June, the Library received this message from Maria Barrera: “I purchased from a flea market vendor a book that I believe belongs to the Harvard Libraries. It does bear the seals of Harvard College Library and lacks any note that may indicate it was withdrawn. I am enclosing pictures of the seals and the front page, for your ready reference.”
The book, W.Y. Sellars’ The Roman Poets of the Republic (Clarendon Press, 1881), turned up at the Park Slope Flea Market in Brooklyn, NY. Its markings confirmed that not only was it a Harvard Library book, but it was from the library of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911), Harvard Class of 1841. As a Union colonel in the Civil War, Higginson commanded the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized regiment of African-American soldiers. He was a prominent social reformer, campaigning for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and temperance. In his later years, he was the author of numerous works on American literature and history, and was the mentor, and first editor (with Mabel Loomis Todd), of Emily Dickinson.
Not only did the volume have Higginson’s own book label and a plate indicating it was a gift to the Harvard College Library,
it also bore his signature on the half-title, his note on the flyleaf,
and several other brief marginal notes in Higginson’s hand, as well as various other marginal marks such as lines, checkmarks, and hash marks. (As the charge slip in the back of the book shows that it circulated nine times between 1950 and 1960, and undoubtedly many times in the decade before that, it’s likely that some of the markings are by other readers.) While unlikely to lead to major changes in scholarship on Higginson, we were very pleased to have it restored to the Harvard collections.
Higginson’s books—831 volumes—along with manuscripts, letters, and scrapbooks, were given by his wife and daughter to the Harvard College Library in three installments between1938 and 1940, supplementing Mrs. Higginson’s gift in 1922-23 of Higginson’s journals and correspondence. While the papers went into the Treasure Room (predecessor of Houghton Library), the books went to the Widener stacks, and circulated to Harvard faculty and students.
In January 1957, Houghton Librarian William A. Jackson went to the Widener stacks in pursuit of another volume from Higginson’s library, George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876) sent to Higginson by Emily Dickinson in spring 1876 (see Johnson and Ward, Letters of Emily Dickinson, nos. 450 & 457). Presumably Jackson was alerted by Johnson and Ward, who were then editing Dickinson’s letters, of the references in Dickinson’s correspondence.
Daniel Deronda’s fate was not as fortunate as that of the Roman Poets: as Jackson’s note inside the volume makes clear, volume one of the two-volume edition, perhaps containing an inscription from Dickinson, had been rejected (i.e. discarded) in 1949. James Walsh, Keeper of Rare Books at Houghton, followed up in the College Library records; his note at the bottom confirms that the lost volume did indeed contain an inscription.
Perhaps it will turn up in a flea market some day? Let us know if it does!
[Thanks to Leslie Morris, Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts, for contributing this post.]