Edwin C. Bolles

Edwin C. Bolles (1836-1920) was Professor of English & American History and the first chaplain of Tufts College. He built a large collection of books and other material about the history and geography of England, especially of London, much of it while living in that city in the 1870s. He set out to “illustrate” his copy of Thornbury’s multivolume “Old and New London” with marginal notes collating the text to a vast external collection of illustrations collected from many other printed sources.

Bolles died at his residence (now known as Bolles House) in 1920. As a memorial to his long and distinguished service to Tufts, the trustees purchased his collection for the college library. Along with the Hosea Ballou and Walter Welch Collections, it is one of the largest named collections in Tisch, supporting research to this day, indeed a student project provided the title image of the book on the plague in London.