This volume of medieval theology offers a rare window into some of the difficulties encountered by scholars in Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War.

As a young scholar at the University of Heidelberg in the early 1930s, historian of philosophy Raymond Klibansky (1905-2005) planned a critical, multi-volume edition of the Latin works of medieval theologian and philosopher Meister Eckhart (d. 1327). Eckhart’s Latin works were less known than his German writings, and because the more scholastic style of these Latin writings involved formal referencing, part of Klibansky’s aim was to underline to a German audience the range of Eckhart’s influences, including Arab and Jewish thinkers. What may look now like an esoteric subject was at the time deeply political, as Eckhart was viewed by Nazi ideologues like Alfred Rosenberg as a father of Aryan thought.

Several obstacles eventually led to the abandonment of Klibansky’s Eckhart edition project after only the first few volumes were published (Vol. 1; Vol. 2; Vol. 13 [=third]). Reasons for the termination of the project included Klibansky’s dismissal as a Jew from Heidelberg University, the seizure of his papers, his move to England, and obstructive measures taken by German authorities against his use of German-held manuscripts. At the same time, a second team was assembled within Germany to produce a complete edition of Eckhart’s works, in this case with the approbation of the government. This edition, the “Stuttgart edition”, produced the now standard critical edition of Eckhart’s works.

The volume shown here, part of McGill’s Raymond Klibansky Collection, is the third volume of the Stuttgart edition, published in 1936. The text is Eckhart’s commentary on the Gospel according to John (Expositio sancti Evangelii secundum Iohannem), a text that Klibansky and his team had begun preparing but had not published before the project was halted.

The annotations are in Klibansky’s hand, and are extraordinary both in terms of Klibansky’s own habits and on account of their content. Klibansky did not normally annotate his books heavily. Here, however, nearly every page of the introduction and text, about 80 pages, is marked or annotated in some way. He comments, for example, “Consequentia falsa” (p.xii), “Nonsens!…” (p.3), or “Stupidité de note…” (p. 8). Also, strikingly, there are several handwritten instructions for a typesetter—in both French and German—to reorganize bits of text, as if this were a manuscript in preparation for new publication.

This document offers extraordinary access to an author’s scholarly but also emotional response to a contentious publication. The volume has not yet been the subject of detailed study, and can be consulted in RBSC; this particular text is in volume 3, part 1 (3. Bd., Lief. 1).

Learn more about Klibansky and the Raymond Klibansky Collection.

FLAMEN, Alberto
Curiosa raccolta di varie e diversi ucelli
[1650] 12mo. n.p. 100 pl.

From An introduction to the literature of vertebrate zoology*: “Not only ‘curious tales about birds’ but altogether a curious and interesting little album of 100 copper-plates, with no text except the legends in Italian furnishing the vulgar names of the subjects. A very rare ornithologic item, not listed in the [British Museum Catalogue (Natural History)].”

This rare item is available to explore online or in person in the reading room.

* An introduction to the literature of vertebrate zoology : based chiefly on the titles in the Blacker Library of Zoology, the Emma Shearer Wood Library of Ornithology, the Bibliotheca Osleriana and other libraries of McGill University, Montreal / Compiled and edited by Casey A. Wood. London : Oxford University Press, 1931.

The Canadian Graphic Art Yearbook (Ryerson Press: 1931) highlights the work of thirty-five artists, members of the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, in the early years of that artists’ organization. Included among the thirty-seven black and white reproductions and one colour print, are works by Bertram Brooker, Edwin Holgate, and Walter J. Philips. This item is available for on-site consultation during our opening hours.

Cathedral Mountain, T.W. McLean

Dominion Square, Montreal, W.F.G. Godfrey

“Of this edition of Canadian Graphic Yearbook, edited by the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, and published by the Ryerson Press, Toronto, five hundred copies only have been printed, of which two hundred and twenty-five are for sale.”

Lincoln North is the virtual home to one of the most unusual research collections housed in Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University. In 1986, Dr. Joseph N. Nathanson (1895-1989) donated to his alma mater the contents of his Abraham Lincoln collection. The collection is comprised of approximately four thousand items including books, pamphlets, prints, manuscripts, ephemera and realia. The website was launched on this day in 2002 to coincide with Lincoln’s birthday (February 12, 1809).

Undated valentine card, Rare Books and Special Collections

“Here’s my heart without your asking”

 

 

 

Please join us for a day of talks being held this Thursday, December 12th in the Colgate Room of Rare Books and Special  Collections relating to the exhibition Un héritage intellectuel, presently on view in the Main Lobby of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, sponsored by IMAQ.

IMAQ is the acronym for “L’Inventaire des imprimés anciens au Québec”, a funded research grant based from the research Chair of Marc André Bernier at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. McGill’s participation is accomplished under the direction of Professor Frédéric Charbonneau, of McGill’s Department of French Language and Literature; and carried out with the support of the Library, under the direction of Dr. Richard Virr. McGill is the beneficiary of a fruitful collaboration on many levels and addresses our Hidden Collections situation in a concrete way.

The purpose of IMAQ is to make Quebec institutional holdings of early imprints more visible and readily accessible to researchers through the online catalogue. This has been achieved by Ann-Marie Hansen and Kristin Neel, McGill University Graduate Students in the Department of French Language and Literature, also the Exhibition Curators. The exhibition fulfills a purpose to expose these newly integrated titles to wider audiences, to promote the collection of early imprints and to suggest avenues for future research. The day of talks promises to shed further light on specific aspects of the works.

Page 16 from ‘A collection of magical formulae with some Christian prayers’

Did you know that some of our rare books have been digitized and can be downloaded from the library catalogue? The McGill Library digitization team maintains a blog, “The Dark Room” that highlights recent digitization projects.

One recent example is A collection of magical formulae with some Christian prayers, a manuscript that dates from the late 16th century. Read all about its digitization on the Dark Room blog or download a copy of the manuscript here.

If you’d like to see the original, visit us in Rare Books and Special Collections during our opening hours, Monday-Friday 10am-6pm.

McGill contingent of the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (MUA 0000-0481.04.1)

The McGill Remembers Project commemorates members of the McGill University community who served during the Second World War. The website brings together thousands of digitized archival records, including photographs, war records, and personal accounts  from the McGill University Archives.

This exhibit explores the Children’s Illustrated Books featured in The Sheila R. Bourke Collection. Sheila R. Bourke is a Montreal area resident and life-long collector of children’s books.  The Sheila R. Bourke collection of twenty-two hundred books, the earliest of which is dated 1571 and progresses to the present date, is a definitive and important collection within McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections.  It documents some of the most important international illustrators and authors who have contributed to the world of children’s literature.  From the perspective of a researcher, this collection is important in its scope and content.  The collection addresses, quite extensively, research interests of individual artists and illustrators, and colour reproduction as documented through the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries.

The exhibition is curated by Lindsey Skeen, McGill School of Information Studies for GLIS 689 – Selected Topics. Supervised by: Professor P.F. McNally and Ms. Sharon Rankin.

The exhibition can be viewed in the Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room Alcove, 4^th floor, McLennan Library Building from  Monday to Friday 10 am – 6 pm until November 30, 2013.