Our Growing Collections

KENNETH A. LOHF

Barnotiw gift. To the papers of her father, the late Dr. Adriaan J.
Barnouw, ,Miss Elsa Barnouw had added more than two hundred
letters, notes, and manuscripts relating primarily to his writings
and researches on Dutch history. In addition. Miss Barnouw's
gift included five watercolor drawings by Hendrik Willem Van
Loon, and a group of six seventeenth and eighteenth century
Dutch illustrated works.

Berol gift. Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Berol have made several im¬
portant additions to the American Revolution and the Arthur
Rackham Collections, both of which they have established in the
Libraries. They have presented, for inclusion in the former, a
letter written by the American naval officer, Stephen Decatur, on
December 8, 1813, while he wason board the U.S.S. United States,
off New London. The letter, addressed to the Secretary of the
Navy, William Jones, concerns the meritorious service and loyalty
of two midshipmen, a Mr. Randolph of V^irginia and a Mr. Bourne
of Rhode Island. Letters from Decatur of war date are exceed¬
ingly rare, and this example, with the conjugate address leaf also
franked by Decatur, is a particularly fine addition to the Collec¬
tion. Mr. and Mrs. Berol have also donated five important Arthur
Rackham drawings and five letters written by him, two of which
contain charming drawings in the text. The series of five pen and
ink drawings were done bv Rackham, ca, 1886-87, f<"^ '^1'^^ Edith
Amy Tomkins, at the time she was being courted by the young
artist. Rackham married Edyth Starkie in 1903. Accompanying
tlie sketches is a letter from Miss Tomkins' daughter, Miss May
Maitland, describing the background to the courtship. This group
of drawings, done when Rackham was nineteen years of age, arc
now the earliest examples of his work in the Collection.

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