The Providence Athenæum has been the recipient of many rare editions and collections since its founding. The Private Library Collection contains three substantial gifts that represent gentlemen’s libraries from the nineteenth century in Providence, including John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886), Holder Borden Bowen (1844-1912), and Joseph J. Cooke (1813-1881).

Horatio Rogers. Private Libraries of Providence, with a preliminary essay on the love of books.

Providence: Sidney S. Ryder, 1878. Red Morocco binding with gilt decoration. Extra illustrated copy with handwritten letters from John Russell Bartlett. Included in this volume are descriptions and images of the libraries of John Russell Bartlett, Holder Borden Bowen, and Joseph J. Cooke. Presented by the Heirs of John Russell Bartlett, 1914.

Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1860. 1st American edition. Ex Libris, Henry B. Anthony. Presented by the Heirs of John Russell Bartlett, 1914.

A selection of fine bindings from the Holder Borden Bowen Collection.

Presented by Holder Borden Bowen.

Owen Chase. Narrative of the most extraordinary and distressing shipwreck of the whale-ship Essex, of Nantucket…

Which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific Ocean; with an account of the unparalleled sufferings of the captain and the crew during a space of ninety-three days at sea, in an open boat ; in the years 1819 & 1820, New York: W.B. Gilley, 1821. Presented by Holder Borden Bowen.

Anne C. Lynch. The Rhode-Island Book: selections in prose and verse, from the writings of Rhode-Island citizens.

Providence: H. Fuller; Boston, Weeks, Jordan, 1841. Presented by Holder Borden Bowen.

Illuminated Medieval Manuscript, late fifteenth century

This is one of two medieval manuscripts in the Athenaeum’s collection. It is a breviary – a service book for monks and clergy. Written in Gothic bookhand, it is typical of manuscripts made in France in the late fifteenth century. The illuminations include numerous decorated letters and five historiated initials with St. Bartholomew, David, St. Maurice, St. Michael, and the Virgin reading. Bequest of Joseph. J. Cooke.

Nicholas Breton. Melancholike Humours.

Kent, England: Printed at the private press of Lee Priory, by Johnson and Warwick, 1815. Lee Priory Press was the private press of Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, a British member of Parliament. The press specialized in reprints of early literature, such as Melancholike Humours, by poet and novelist of Nicholas Breton, originally published in 1600. Bequest of Joseph. J. Cooke.

The John Russell Bartlett Collection is a collection of 400 volumes and numerous pamphlets that were donated to the Providence Athenæum by the heirs of John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886) in 1914. The collection contains several publications by Bartlett, including an unpublished scrapbook documenting the development of the Atlantic Telegraph and numerous biographies, travels, histories, and works on ethnology as well as Rhode Island history. Many of the titles in his collection are signed by Bartlett and contain his personal annotations and correspondence.

The Holder Borden Bowen Collection numbers some 2,000 volumes rich in books of folklore, memoirs, seventeenth and eighteenth-century travel and exploration, pirates and highwaymen, as well as dueling, wine, and card playing. Additionally, many of the bindings in this collection are noteworthy, and each title is plated with Bowen’s handsome personal bookplate.

The Joseph J. Cooke Bequest Collection was acquired by the library in 1883. Cooke, a successful businessman and dry-goods merchant, started collecting books only ten years prior to his death, at which time the collection contained over 20,000 volumes. The Providence Athenæum acquired 959 volumes at auction, including two illuminated manuscripts and several early nineteenth-century handsomely printed titles from the Lee Priory in Kent, England. The original three volume auction catalog with marginalia is included in the collection.