University of Minnesota Libraries
Some special collections of interest
to students of British and American literature
Special Collections and Rare
Books. 111 Andersen Library; 612–626–9166.
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Renaissance emblem books.
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Seventeenth-century English history.
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Nineteenth-century literary annuals and gift books.
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The Archie Givens, Sr.,
Collection of Afro-American Literature. Approximately
8,000 books, scripts, and pamphlets, dating from 1773 to the present.
Authors include Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Phyllis Wheatley, Charles
Chestnutt, Ralph Ellison, W. E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson,
Booker T. Washington, Maya Angelou, Taylor Gordon, Zora Neale Hurston.
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American authors: James Fenimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, Samuel Clemens,
Raymond Gunn, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Wolfe, Henry Miller, Truman Capote,
John Steinbeck, Edmund Wilson, John Berryman (see also Manuscripts Division
below), Robert Bly, Erskine Caldwell, Edwin A. Robinson.
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British authors: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Dryden, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson,
William Blake, Charles Dickens, W. B. Yeats, A. Conan Doyle (The
Sherlock Holmes Collections), John Galsworthy, John Masefield, Walter
de la Mare, Virginia Woolf.
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Typography and private presses, including a complete collection of Kelmscott
Press books.
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The Joseph S. Mertle
Collection on the History of Photomechanics. Approximately
6,000 books and journals, plus more than 1,000 artifacts and nonprint items,
that relate to photographic processes in printing from the early period
to the middle of the twentieth century.
Not fully catalogued in MNCAT
(in LUMINA).
James Ford Bell Library.
462 Wilson Library; 612–624–1528. Curator: Carol Urness (c-urne@umn.edu).
Reputed to be the world’s largest collection of sixteenth-, seventeenth-,
and eighteenth-century travel literature; strong ideological interest.
Described in An
Annotated Catalog of Original Source Materials Relating to the History
of European Expansion, 1400-1800: The James Ford Bell Library (Minneapolis:
James Ford Bell Library, 1994):
[The collection] consists of original source materials relating
to the history of European expansion prior to 1800, with particular emphasis
on the mercantile aspects. It includes related subjects such as the intellectual
background to the Age of Discovery, the practical aspects of navigation
and astronomy, laws governing international maritime trade, cartography,
philosophical rationale accompanying colonial and commercial expansion,
the development of Christian missionary enterprise abroad, and the uses
of natural history for commercial purposes. A very substantial part of
the Library consists of accounts of discovery, exploration, commerce, and
travel outward from Europe to all parts of the world.
Cataloguing in MNCAT
(in LUMINA)
is proceeding, although fewer than forty percent of the records have been
processed. On-site indexes include a chronological index and indexes of
illustrations and maps, as well as subject indexes.
Manuscripts Division.
213 Andersen Library; 612–625–3550. Curator: Alan Lathrop (a-lath@umn.edu).
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Frederick Manfred papers (1928–1994). Correspondence, journals, notes,
outlines, and manuscript drafts of his novels.
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Records of the Henry Miller Literary Society, Minneapolis, including 283
letters from Miller (1956–68).
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John Berryman papers (1914–72). Correspondence, diaries, notes, and drafts
of his poetry and prose; lecture notes, financial papers, and photographs.
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James Wright papers (1943–85). Correspondence, journals, manuscripts, typescripts,
galley proofs of his poetry and prose works; photographs, clippings, classroom
notes.
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Star Trek scripts. Screenplays for episodes in the early TV series
and the first two feature-length movies.
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Archives of regional theaters and musical organizations.
The Children’s
Literature Research Collections. 113 Andersen Library; 612–624–4817.
Curator: Karen Hoyle (k-hoyl@tc.umn.edu).
Including two major general collections:
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The
Kerlan Collection. More than 75,000 children’s books, primarily by
twentieth-century American writers, as well as manuscript and illustration
materials for more than 9,000 titles; also numerous periodicals, reference
works, and publishers’ catalogues.
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The Hess
Collection. Important collection of inexpensive, popular literature
from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as story papers, dime
novels, series books, Big Little Books, pulps, and comic books.
A checklist, The Kerlan Collection: Manuscripts and Illustrations for
Children’s Books, was published in 1985. Most
items are not catalogued in MNCAT
(in LUMINA),
but are described in a card catalogue on site.
Wangensteen History
of Medicine and Biology Library. 568 Diehl Hall; 612–626–6881.
Acting curator: Elaine Challacombe (e-chal@umn.edu).
Strong historical collection of works concerned with anatomy, physiology,
medical botany. Catalogued in MNCAT
(in LUMINA).
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Michael Hancher
Department of English, University of Minnesota
URL: http://mh.cla.umn.edu/speccoll.html
Comments to: mh@umn.edu
Created February 1995
Last revised 13 November 2000