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The Many Lives of Phoenix

RUDOLPH ELLENBOGEN

HOENIX, a name that conjures up the image of the Ara¬
bian bird of fire and resurrection, is an uncommon and
magical name. At the Libraries the name immediately
calls to mind the University's first collection of rare books and
manuscripts formed by Stephen Whitney Phoenix, a loyal Colum¬
bian and remarkable nineteenth century New York gentleman.
From his splendid books one has the distinct impression of culti¬
vated taste. There are in his library: a magnificient fifteenth cen¬
tury Book of Hours; a Caxton, Christine de Pisan's Fayte of Arm.es
and Chyvalrye (1489); a collection of emblem books; the out¬
standing nineteenth century illustrated books such as David Rob¬
erts' Holy Land and his Egypt and Nubia, Daniel Giraud Elliot's
The Birds of North America and George Catlin's North Ameri¬
can India7ZS; a splendid copy of a First Folio of Shakespeare; a
unique copy of Robert Fulton's Treatise on Canal Navigation with
the inventor's original drawings; and a collector's treasure, lambli-
cus' De mysterri Aegyptiorum in a Jean Grolier binding. When
the name Phoenix appeared in connection with a netsuke (a Jap¬
anese carved toggle used to fasten a purse to a kimono) on exhibit
recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I could no longer re¬
strain my curiosity to learn more about the collector.

In May 1857, Columbia College, consisting of 154 students,
moved from Park Place to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Fiftieth
Street near Fourth Avenue which had been remodeled to include
chapel, classrooms, library, and living accomodations for the
President and some of the professors and their families. The Col¬
lege was in a new part of town: it was years before Madison Ave¬
nue was to be paved above Forty-Second Street or even to be
opened above Forty-Ninth Street; the Bull's Head cattle yards

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