|
|
Rare Books and Special Collections
English Language and Literature Collections
|
The collection includes material written by and about English and Anglo-Irish poets and essayists of the Romantic, Victorian and Edwardian periods (nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). More than 450 authors of these periods are represented in more than 13,000 volumes. The collection also contains a vast number of presentation and association copies, all preserved in their original state as acquired by Mr. Colbeck over more than 40 years. Significant items include many first editions, special editions, limited editions, and titles of significance in the history of printing (by the Lee Priory, Pickering, Kelmscott, and Cuala Presses),
publications of book collectors' clubs (Sette of Odd Volumes), and little magazines. To browse the book collection, click here.
Publication:
Colbeck, Norman. A Bookman's Catalogue: The Norman Colbeck Collection of Nineteenth-Century
and Edwardian Poetry and Belles-Lettres in the Special Collections of the University of British Columbia.
Vancouver: UBC Press, 1987.
|
|
When the collection was acquired in 1962, it included nearly all of the editions of Robbie Burns’ works,
as well as critical and biographical materials, Scottish song books, works by other Scottish writers, and
works about favourite "haunts" of Burns. The chronological emphasis is the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
|
|
The collection includes books by and about Le Fanu, a noted Irish author, including a number of first editions
of his novels and stories. In addition there is correspondence from Le Fanu and from his son, and a manuscript
biography, notes, transcripts and working papers by Roy Stokes.
|
|
The library has a significant collection of little magazines, most of which are in the Rare Books and
Special Collections. Not only British Columbia magazines but most of the important Canadian titles are here.
Publications:
Meister, Marilyn. The little magazines of British Columbia: A narrative bibliography. Vancouver, B.C.:
University of British Columbia. School of Librarianship, 1967.
Norris, Ken. The little magazine in Canada 1925-80. Toronto: ECW Press, 1984.
|
|
The collection includes over 350 dictionaries and encyclopaedias. "There are to be seen in this collection
many of the bands in the historical spectrum of the English dictionary. This spectrum extends from the first
stirrings of the precursors in the Classical period and the Renaissance, through the earliest adventures in
bilingual lexicography in the sixteenth century, to the comparatively small English dictionaries of the
seventeenth century, past the surges of Bailey and Johnson in the eighteenth century, and finally to the
great dictionaries of the twentieth century, of which the OED is outstanding."
Publication:
Robertson, H. Rocke. A Collection of dictionaries and related works illustrating the development
of the English dictionary. Vancouver, UBC Press, 1989.
Robertson, Ian B. H. Rocke Robertson collection of dictionaries and related works. The Robertson Project, 2005. [PDF]
|
|
The collection includes first editions of important nineteenth century fiction, and multi-volume editions
of works by Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, W.M. Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, Benjamin Disraeli,
Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Kingsley, George Eliot, and George Meredith.
|
|
The collection includes books edited by and bibliographies compiled by Thomas J. Wise, various books by and
about Wise, forgeries, piracies, etc., plus manuscripts and correspondence.
Publication:
Thomas J. Wise collection in the University of British Columbia Libraries' Special Collections Division.
Vancouver, B.C. : The Division, 1976.
|
|
The collection of the published work of the American poet Louis Zukofsky (1904-1978).
The collection includes "every word in every book in every possible variant edition" with the
exception of Le Style Appollinaire (a book destroyed by fire in the publisher’s Paris warehouse in 1934),
which is present here only in a unique manuscript copy, in English, stapled together and marked by Zukofsky
"First American Edition". Half the books and pamphlets are signed and/or inscribed by Zukofsky. There are
also anthologies and periodical issues containing his work; four translations; four critical works; manuscripts;
ephemera; and a photograph.
|
 RBSC
Home
Last modified: Jun 3, 08
UBC Library
Info:
604.822.6375
Renewals:
604.822.3115
604.822.2883
250.807.9107
|
