June Acquisitions / Somehow None for the Calvino Collection

Our new acquisitions include, from the Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library Collection:

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Professional Secrets by Jean Cocteau

and Geometry and Faith by Thomas Hill from the Maria Mitchell Personal Library Collection.

From the Robert Smithson Personal Library Collection, we just accessioned:

Ritual Magic by E. M. Butler
Some Versions of the Pastoral by William Empson
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
Symbols, Signals & Noise: The Nature and Process of Communication by J.R. Pierce
and
Rock Art of the American Indian by Campbell Grant



Grant's book includes many incredible photographs and illustrations. Above illustrates sandstone paintings by the Chumash of California. It details that "only the Chumash and the neighboring Yokuts painted on smoke-blackened surfaces."


Some Versions of the Pastoral joins Empson's other book The Structure of Complex Words on the shelf. They make a fine pair.


Please contact the Librarian at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com for information about the Personal Libraries Library or if you are a member and want to check out any of these new books.

Openings (and New Aqcuisitions, April 2011)

One cannot travel anywhere in the back country of the United States, especially west of the Great Plains, without being impressed by the many evidences of old mines showing grayly on the flanks of ragged mountains and crumbling ghost towns wrapped in sage and silence at the ends of long abandoned dirt roads.

-first sentence from A Range Guide to Mines and Minerals by Jay Ellis Ransom


In addition to the incredible A Range Guide to Mines and Minerals from Smithson's Personal Library, new March/April acquisitions include:

Learning and Language: The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (Calvino Personal Library)

Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands by Harriet Beecher Stowe (Mitchell Personal Library)

Culture & Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (Smithson Personal Library)

Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century by J.L.E. Dreyer (Smithson Personal Library)


The Complete Poetry of William Blake (Borges Personal Library)
and
Selected Prose, Poetry, and Eureka by Edgar Allan Poe (Calvino Personal Library)


It is with humility really unassumed--it is with a sentiment even of awe--that I pen the opening sentence of this work; for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn--the most comprehensive--the most difficult--the most august.

-first sentence from Edgar Allan Poe's Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe

Personal Libraries Library Reference Library

The PLL is pleased to announce the formation of a reference section. Following are books that are great sources about those whose libraries are being collected. These books are available during Reading Room Hours only, and not for check out.

MARIA MITCHELL
Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science by Renee Bergland - Ref MM 1.1

ROBERT SMITHSON
Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings edited by Jack Flam - Ref RS 2.1
Robert Smithson organized by Eugenie Tsai with Cornelia Butler - Ref RS 2.2

ITALO CALVINO (more to be added)
Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino - Ref IC 3.1
The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino - Ref IC 3.2

JORGE LUIS BORGES (more to be added)
Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Non-Fictions edited by Eliot Weinberger - Ref JLB 4.1

New Additions to Maria Mitchell Personal Library

The Personal Libraries Library is proud to announce four recent acquisitions to the Maria Mitchell Personal Library. They include Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh (the main character is rumored to be based on Margaret Fuller, another author in Mitchell's library.) While traveling in Florence, Italy in 1858, Mitchell wanted very much to meet Barrett Browning; she had the perfect introduction in the form of a book from a mutual friend. Yet, Mitchell was too shy (or proper) to call unannounced and left the book on Barrett Browning's stoop. This story is beautifully recounted in Bergland's Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science (Beacon Press).

Also acquired is this beautiful copy of Sarah K. Bolton's Lives of Girls Who Became Famous. This book includes essays about Maria Mitchell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Margaret Fuller (Ossoli), Madame de Stael, Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The final sentence of the discussion on Maria Mitchell states, "She is an honor to her sex, a striking example of what a quiet country girl can accomplish without money or fortuitous circumstances."

Two other new acquisitions are On the Connection of the Physical Sciences by Maria Somerville (this purchase was made possible by PLL member Palmarin Merges) and Poems by Bret Harte.

Maria Mitchell Personal Library Catalogue

FICTION & POETRY:  
Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning - MM 1.4 2009 
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord George Byron - MM 1.10 2010 
In the Sky Garden by Lizzie Champney - MM 1.15 2012
Emerson's Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson - MM 1.1 2009
Poems by Bret Harte - MM 1.6 2009
The Marble Faun, Volume I by Nathaniel Hawthorne - MM 1.2.1 2009
The Marble Faun, Volume II by Nathaniel Hawthorne - MM 1.2.2 2009
The Odyssey by Homer - MM 1.24 2015

Paradise Lost and Other Poems by John Milton - MM 1.3 2009
Corinne by Madame de Stael - MM 1.8 2010
Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands by Harriet Beecher Stowe - MM 1.11 2011

SCIENCE & MATH:
Gravitation by Sir George Airy - MM 1.14 2011
The Geography of the Heavens by Elijah Burritt - MM 1.23 2015

The Private Life of Galileo by Galileo Galilei (Compiled principally from his correspondence and that of his eldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste) - MM 1.16 2013 
La Lune by Amedee Guillemin - MM 1.17 2013
The Earth and Man: lectures on comparative physical geography, in its relation to the history of mankind by Arnold Guyot - MM 1.19 2014
Outlines of Astronomy by Sir John Herschel - MM 1.26 2016********
Geometry and Faith by Thomas Hill - MM 1.12 2011
A New Treatise on the Use of Globes by Thomas Keith - MM 1.18 2013 
Geography Made Easy by Jedidiah Morse - MM 1.20 2014
The Earth by Robert Mudie - MM 1.21 2014 
Letters on Astronomy, Addressed to a Lady by Denison Olmsted - MM 1.25 2015

Spectrum Analysis by Henry Roscoe - MM 1.22 2014
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mary Somerville - MM 1.5 2009
Physical Geography by Mary Somerville - MM 1.13 2011

SUFFRAGIST TEXTS & WRITINGS:
Lives of Girls Who Became Famous by Sarah K. Bolton - MM 1.7 2009
Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller - MM 1.9 2010

Contact the Library at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com to place holds on a book from the Maria Mitchell Personal Library.

The catalogue will be updated as books are acquired.

This list was compiled with the help of The Maria Mitchell Association of Nantucket; most notably by the incredibly helpful curator of Special Collections at the Association, Jascin Finger. Other books were gleaned by reading Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science by Renee Bergland (Beacon Press, Boston) and Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals compiled by Phebe Mitchell Kendall (BiblioBazaar).

Personal Libraries Library's First Books: Emerson's Essays, The Marble Faun & Paradise Lost

The Personal Libraries Library has acquired the first books of the Maria Mitchell Personal Library collection; the first being Emerson's Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This book is particularly special because it is also the inaugural book of the entire Personal Libraries Library.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maria Mitchell were good friends; when he lectured in Nantucket he was welcomed into the Mitchell household above the Pacific Bank on Main Street. Mitchell also found herself defending the work of Emerson to Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College in 1857.




The PLL has also acquired The Marble Faun, Volumes I & II by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Paradise Lost by John Milton. Maria Mitchell traveled to Italy with Hawthorne and his family in 1858; after which Hawthorne wrote The Marble Faun. Mitchell also had a close connection with Paradise Lost, as she wrote an essay titled "The Astronomical Science of Milton," regarding the epic poem.

Members are invited to check out the inaugural books.