Tufts University. Tisch Library. Special Collections
“Your letter came informing me of some books I sent the Tufts College Library. It is a very great pleasure for me to be able to do this and I hope to send more in the future.” - Walter F. Welch, Jr. A ‘28, writing on January 12, 1953. Over the next two decades, Welch sent 10 medieval manuscripts, dozens of early printed books, manuscript fragments, fine bindings, and much more to support Tufts students & faculty in the study of art, literature, languages, and history. To mark the 30th anniversary of his graduation, he gave a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible, from a damaged copy, bound with an essay to commemorate the printer. The Welch gifts are the beginning and core of the #tischrarebooks collection @tuftsuniversity 1. Leaf from a French Book of Hours, 15th century 2. MS 9, Book of Hours, Netherlands, 15th century 3. Walter F. Welch, Jr., Tufts yearbook photo, 1928 4. Welch’s bookplate in a 16th century copy of Cicero 5. Leaf from a Gutenberg Bible, about 1450-1455 6. Miniature in MS 2, Book of Hours, France, 15th century 7. Signature of preeminent Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry, an earlier owner of MS 7, Gospel sequences for Holy Week, Italy, 15th century 8. Decorated initial in MS 7 9. Clippings from the Tufts Weekly
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Tufts poet, professor, & critic John Holmes (1904-1962) was friend, teacher, and mentor to many fellow poets. Anne Sexton and John Ciardi A’38 were among his students in writers’ workshops and Tufts’s classes. After his death, his wife, poet, memoirist, and Wellesley dean & lecturer Doris Holmes Eyges (1921-2016) donated Professor Holmes’s large poetry collection to the Tufts library. Many volumes, by intention, are in the circulating collection. Presentation copies, gifts such as these, from Ciardi and Robert Frost, are important parts of Tisch Special Collections. Holmes’s papers are held in Digital Collections & Archives, which hosts an online exhibit dedicated to the first Tufts Poet.
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 & 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.
These are mass-produced books: cheap to manufacture, produced in relatively large numbers, inexpensive to acquire (unless, perhaps, they are your course texts). What elevates them to the status of “rare,” and worthy of the best measures to preserve them, is the person who collected them, political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002). It has been written that paper is how the dead talk to us, and how we talk to them. In the pages of these books we observe one of the great minds of the 20th century in dialogue with historical figures, among them, in these photos, Abraham Lincoln and Aristotle. Tufts Professor of Philosophy Erin Kelly was John Rawls’s student at Harvard. It is to her, and to Mardy Rawls, wife of John Rawls, that Tisch Library owes thanks for this collection of books which allow us into the philosopher’s study, where we may eavesdrop on the conversation there.
October 9, 2020 – "Peterborough Bestiary"
Tufts University. Tisch Library, Special Collections
Elephants in a beautiful facsimile of the Peterborough Bestiary, an early 14th century manuscript.
Grade 12, Age 18 Lexington Christian Academy Lexington, MA Gold Key – Drawing & Illustration Kevin Lee, Educator
Presented by School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University Sponsored by the Boston Globe Foundation
Grade 9, Age 14 Lexington High School Lexington, MA Gold Key – Drawing & Illustration Yuanan Cheng, Educator
Grade 10, Age 17 Deerfield Academy Deerfield, MA Gold Key – Poetry Jae Won Lee, Educator
Grade 11, Age 16 Buckingham Browne Nichols High School Cambridge, MA Gold Key – Personal Essay & Memoir Sam Crihfield, Educator
Grade 8, Age 13 Community Day Charter Public School - Gateway Lawrence, MA Gold Key – Poetry Sean Lauwers, Educator