Rare Books

Since many of the authors we collect were involved in World War I, either as combatants, protesters, or just intelligent people living through a traumatic national nightmare, we attempt to collect as much as possible about the war, either as literature, non-fiction or popular culture. Although we began by concentrating on the literature produced by the war, including important accounts by Robert Graves, Richard Aldington, and Siegfried Sassoon, we also collect factual accounts of the combatant experiences', and other non-fiction about the events of the war and their background. Also collected are anthologies of war literature, or general anthologies dealing with the war, periodicals and some visual material.

The Irish literature collected covers the period often called the Irish Renaissance, from about 1860 to 1930, and includes some writers to the present day. Authors with extensive holdings include: Katharine Tynan Hinkson, Flann O'Brien, Lennox Robinson, Mary Lavin, Francis Stuart, and material on the Abbey Theater productions and accounts. We also have very good, representative collections for: W.B. Yeats, Jack Butler Yeats, Douglas Hyde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Lady Gregory, A.E. (George Russell), James Stephens, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, and Conal O'Riordan (Norrys Connell). A recent gift from Dr. John V. Kelleher, formerly of Harvard University, has currently filled many gaps in the literary Irish collections, as well as adding much important non-fiction material on the full spectrum of Irish history.

An Irish author whose holdings are so extensive as to merit his own book collection, complementing the very extensive manuscript collection, James Joyce is probably our most intensively collected author. The original collection of books, manuscripts and correspondence was amassed by Harley Croessmann, a resident of DuQuoin, Illinois. At the time of the transfer of his collection to Morris Library, Special Collections, in 1958, Special Collections agreed to continue collecting all important editions of Joyce's work published, and all important criticism and secondary material about Joyce, including photographs, art work, sound recordings and video tapes, and to retrospectively fill in any gaps in the collection.

Special Collections has a fine, representative selection of late 19th and early 20th century fine printing by American, British, and Irish presses, including highlights or representative samples from: Kelmscott Press, Eragny Press, Thomas B. Mosher, The Roycroft Press, Ashendene Press, Doves Press, Golden Cockerel Press, Gregynog Press, Beaumont Press, Oriole Press, Hogarth Press, and Stanbrook Abbey Press, among others. Special Collections collects the following presses intensively: Cuala Press, Black Sun Press, Trovillion Private Press, Melissa Press, Hours Press, and Seizin Press. Under both fine printing and local history, we have excellent holdings for local southern Illinois presses. We have a fairly representative collection of books about publishing, printing, paper, type and handwriting, which we no longer collect very intensively.

In conjunction with the John Dewey publishing project, housed on this campus, Special Collections holds books from Dewey's library, and collects a representative selection of books by and about philosophers who followed closely in Dewey's footsteps. A separate and still growing philosophical collection is the works of the Open Court Publishing Company, founded more than one hundred years ago in LaSalle, Illinois, and publishing works on philosophy, religious thought and allied subjects, including the magazine, The Monist. In addition to holding the papers of the company, we also have a very complete collection of all their books and periodicals, which continues to grow since the press now sends us copies of all books published to date.

Special Collections collects books about southern Illinois and its history in all aspects, with the exception of specific genealogical works on individual families or on the techniques and practice of genealogy. "Southern Illinois" is loosely defined as being that part of the state below the line created by I-70, although the line of I-64 delineates the real core of the state. We also hold some representative titles on local history concerning St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and similar portions of states bordering on southern Illinois and sharing a common history with it. In addition to books and magazines, Special Collections also maintains a clipping file of articles and other paper ephemera about the area.

Following the gift of several hundred works by SIU Alumni by the Alumni Office, Special Collections pledged to enlarge this collection, either through purchase or through gifts from authors. Authors with local ties who are featured in this collection include Robert Coover, Dick Gregory, and Charles Johnson.

Each of the areas which have major book collections also have current and retrospective periodical holdings, most of which are not yet available on Illinet Online. These include representative samples of modernist icons such as The Egoist, The Little Review, and This Quarter, including a complete run of transition. Irish periodicals collected include The Bell, Envoy: A Review of Literature and Art, Kavanagh's Weekly, and The Holy Door. Special Collections has a virtually complete collection of all the periodicals covering James Joyce, since the early 1950's, including The James Joyce Review, The James Joyce Quarterly, The James Joyce Broadsheet, and The James Joyce Newsletter. Local history periodicals include a complete run of The Egyptian Key, and Springhouse.

With the arrival of Dean Ralph E. McCoy's First Amendment Freedoms Collection in 1981, Special Collections acquired books and collecting interests which touch on the literary and historical holdings, but also broaden the department's holding in history , sociology, education and even medicine. The areas covered by Dr. McCoy include: Freedom of speech and of the press in English-language countries (primarily the UK and the USA, with less on Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, etc.) from about 1600 to the present. Special interests within this very wide-ranging collection include: in England, John Wilkes, the Star Chamber, the Civil War and Protectorate periods, and the civil and political upheavals of 1792-1800 and the 1830's; in the USA, the colonial period, the Know-Nothings and associated movements of the nineteenth century, Victoria Woodhull, the Scopes trial and other attacks on science, the "red scare" of the 1950's, and the Watergate era. Separate collections within the McCoy collection include the writings of the American freethinker and rebel, Robert Ingersoll, and the founder of the American Civil Liberties parent organization, Theodore Schroeder. The McCoy Collection also holds and collects books banned for any reason, and material on the history of sex education in England and America, most of which has also been banned over the years. We endeavor to keep this collection up to date, and to add material from current controversies, including the banning of specific books, the efforts of pro and anti-censorship groups in the US, and the movement to censor non-print materials. The McCoy Collection maintains subscriptions to appropriate magazines in the censorship/freedom of expression area which are not collected elsewhere in the library. Current subscriptions include Access Reports, AIM Report, Brill's Content, Censorship News, Communications and the Law, Extra!, Gauntlet, Heterodoxy, Index on Censorship [ also in Humanities], Obscenity Law Bulletin, Propaganda Review, and St. Louis Journalism Review. There are also runs of various free magazines, including Censorship Matters, and the newsletter of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom, among others. Any single issue of a magazine dealing with censorship, or censored itself, is collected. Ralph McCoy compiled a three volume bibliography of Freedom of the Press, the first volume of which is online.

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