The Library of Alan H. Kempner                     9

poet. John Donne is represented by the 1650 edition of his Poems,
and Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher by the 1679 folio. Fifty
Comedies and Tragedies, the second edition but the first complete
one, containing eighteen plays not in the 1647 edition.

Among the eighteenth century books is a highly prized edition
printed at Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill Press which has been
called the most distinguished piece of printing to come from the
press: Lucan's Pbarsalia, 1760, with a fine cartouche engraved by
Grignion on the title page. The major novelists and biographers of
the century are represented by first editions of their most important
works: James Boswell by The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791; Henry
Fielding by The History of Tom Jones, 1749; Samuel Johnson by
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, 1775; Tobias Smollett
by The Adventures of Roderick Random, 1748; and Laurence Sterne
by A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, 1768. Special
mention must also be made of the fine copy, bound in contem¬
porary calf of Jonathan Swift's famous Travels Into Several Remote
Nations of the World, published in 1726 under the pseudonym of
Lemuel Gulliver.

Alan's library has a representative selection of poetry of the
Romantic period, including first editions of Byron, Shelley, and
Wordsworth. When considering a gift to honor the opening of the
new quarters for the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Alan,
determined to select the most appropriate book to mark the occa¬
sion, presented the imposing Shelley family Bible, signed by Percy
Bysshe Shelley's father, Sir Timothy Shelley, on the title page of
The Book of Common Prayer, 163 8, the first part of the volume. It
was a splendid commemorative gift, a highlight of the Library's
opening exhibition, and a volume that was consulted almo.st imme¬
diately by Shelley scholars.

By far the largest group of first editions, some 147 titles, are
those of the novelists of the Victorian period. Much of the best-
.selling fiction of the period was issued in parts, and Alan collected
representative examples: Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, 1855-57,