The London Library’s enviable foreign languages collection contains books in over 50 languages, with particular riches in the French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian collections. The Library’s resident polyglot Retrospective Cataloguer Anna Vlasova, with assistance from Claudia Ricci, gives the first installment in her series of bi-lingual pieces focused on the foreign languages in the London Library ahead of this year’s European Day of Languages celebrated on 26 September. Anna takes a look at the Library’s fascinating RUSSIAN COLLECTION of literature, poetry and essays from the 19th/20th centuries. (English and with Russian transliteration, below).

From its foundation in 1841, the London Library has aimed to maintain a representative collection of literature in all major European languages. The Russian element was introduced by Robert Harrison, Librarian from 1857 to 1893, and remained strong ever since. Robert Harrison spent several years in Russia acting as a tutor to the family of prince Demidov and lecturing in the St. Anne’s school in St. Petersburg. Harrison’s successor Sir Charles Hagberg Wright, Librarian from 1894 to 1940, received much of his early education in Russia and maintained a lifelong devotion to the country and its great writers, some of whom, notably, Tolstoy and Gorky, were close friends. One of the permanent memorials to Sir Charles’s Russian interests is the London Library’s comprehensive collection of Russian literature. Russian literature collections, including the collection of 19th century Russian literature, praised by Sir Isaiah Berlin as ‘truly remarkable’ and containing ‘among other, better-known works, a number of rare and fascinating books some of which are not to be found in the British Library or anywhere else in Britain’, was recently electronically catalogued as part of the Library’s Retrospective Cataloguing Project:http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/index.php?/retrospective-cataloguing.html

The Russian literature collections include editions of collected works of all major Russian writers, as well as individual works of poetry, drama and essays by a wide range of authors in the original Russian as well as in translation. Some of the notable collected works include Tolstoy’s 91 volume Polnoe sobranie sochineniǐ (Moskva: Terra, 1992), Chekhov’sPolnoe sobranie sochineniǐ i pisem v tridtsati tomakh (Moskva: Nauka, 1974-1983) and Turgenev’s Polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ i pisem v dvadtsati vosʹmi tomakh (Moskva: Nauka, 1961-1968). For all major 19th century authors (e.g. Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy) contemporary editions (printed using the old spelling conventions) are found alongside more modern ones. The remarkable collection of the authors of the Golden Age of the Russian literature is supplemented by an equally comprehensive collection of the poets of the Silver Age. Works of Blok, Esenin, Briusov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Severianin, Gumilev, to name a few, can be found on the Library’s open access shelves. Notable Symbolists, such as Andreev, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Sologub and Ivanov are also present.  The Library holds many works of the Silver Age poets in original editions published by Alkonost, Al’tsiona, Sirin and Skorpion.

Due to Hagberg Wright’s friendship with and interest in Tolstoy, the Library holds a particularly rich collection of Tolstoy’s works from the 1890s and 1900s, including, notably, his banned works (published in Russian by A. Tchertkoff in Christchurch and M. Elpidine in Geneva), his less well-known religious and philosophical works (published in English by the Free Age Press in Christchurch), and also criticism of his literature and thought from this period.

Some examples of donations found in the Russian literature collections are particularly notable, as they illustrate the interests of a few British authors in the cultural and political affairs of the 20th century Russia. Among other things, Hagberg Wright’s connections with Russia’s cultural milieu are evident from an inscription expressing hope for future meetings from Ivan Bilibin found in a 1905 edition of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales for which Bilibin created the illustrations. A copy of Tsarstvo Antikhrista, donated to the Library by a British travel-writer and novelist Stephen Graham (1884 -1975), includes Merezhkovsky’s dedication to Graham dated 1925, when Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius were in exile in Paris. Sir Isaiah Berlin, some of whose books are now held by the London Library, met with Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago) in the Soviet Union in the 1940s. A testimony of these meetings is found in Pasternak’s dedication to Berlin in a 1933 edition of his poetry: “To I.M. Berlin, Lucky book it will travel and end up in Oxford instead of me! B.Pasternak, 24 XII 1945, Moscow”.

Currently there is an active acquisitions policy for Russian works, including contemporary literature and fiction. For more information on Russian collections please visit Introduction to the Collections: http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/index.php?/books.html.

С момента своего основания в 1841 году Лондонская Библиотека целенаправленно комплектует печатные издания на всех основных европейских языках. Русские коллекции Лондонской Библиотеки были основаны Робертом Харрисоном, занимавшим должность библиотекаря с 1857 по 1893 год. Харрисон провел несколько лет в России, где он работал преподавателем в семье князя Демидова и в училище Св. Aнны в Санкт-Петербурге. Преемник Харрисона, Сэр Чарльз Хегберг Райт (Sir Charles Hagberg Wright), работал библиотекарем с 1894 по 1940 год  и был особенно заинтересован русской культурой и литературой, поскольку он получил образование в России и был лично знаком Л.Н. Толстым, М. Горьким и другими писателями. Русские коллекции обязаны своим богатством  Хегбергу Райту, который комплектовал русские издания в течении почти пятидесяти лет. Коллекции русской литературы, включая коллекцию 19-го века, названную Сэром Исаей Берлином (Isaiah Berlin) ‘поистине выдающейся’ и содержащей ‘среди прочих более известных работ, редкие и занимательные книги, некоторые из которык не найти в Британской Библиотеке, да и нигде в Великобритании’, недавно были полностью каталогизированны в рамках Проекта Ретроспективной Каталогизации Лондонской Библиотекиhttp://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/index.php?/retrospective-cataloguing.html

Коллекции русской литературы включают в себя издания полных собраний сочинений ключевых русских писателей, а так же отдельные издания романов, стихов, пьес и очерков широкого круга авторов как на русском языке, так и в переводе. Из собраний сочинений можно особо выделить такие издания как Полное собрание сочинений Л.Н. Толстого в девяносто одном томе (Москва: Терра, 1992), Полное собрание сочинений и писем (31 том) А.П. Чехова (Москва: Наука, 1974-1983), а так же Полное собрание сочинений и писем в двадцати восьми томах Тургенева (Москва: Наука, 1961-1968). Произведения выдающихся писателей 19-го века (например Н.В. Гоголя, А.С. Пушкина, М.Ю.  Лермонтова, И.С. Тургенева, А.Н. Островского, Ф.М. Достоевского, Л.Н.Толстого) доступны в изданиях как 19-го (в дореформенной орфографии), так и в изданиях 20-го веков. Богатая коллекция писателей Золотого Века русской литературы дополнена не менее замечательной коллекцией поэтов Серебряного Века. А. А. Блок, С. А. Есенин, В. Я. Брюсов, А. А. Aхматова, М. И. Цветаева, И. Северянин, Н. Гумилев – лишь некоторые из поэтов Серебрянного Века, произведения которых читатели могут найти на полках открытого доступа в Библиотеке. Важнейшие Символисты, такие как Л. Aндреев, Д. С. Мережковский, З. Н. Гиппиус, Ф. Сологуб и В. Иванов также содержатся в коллекциях русской литературы. Произведения многих поэтов Серебрянного Века доступны в оригинальных изданиях Aлконоста, Aльциона, Сирина и Скорпиона.

Поскольку Сэр Хегберг Райт был поклонником творчества Толстого, переводил его произведения на англииский язык и был другом великого русского писателя, Лондонская Библиотека содержит особо богатую коллекцию трудов Толстого, изданных в 1890-х и 1900-х годах. Фонды Библиотеки содержат так же запрещенные произведения Толстого, изданные на русском языке A. Чертковым в Крайстчерч и М. Элпидиным в Женеве, его менее известные религиозные и философские произведения, изданные на английском языке в издательстве Free Age Press в Крайстчерч, а так же критические статьи о его творчестве.

Некоторые книги из коллекциии русской литературы, подаренные Лондонской Библиотеке британскими авторами и коллекционерами, особенно примечательны, поскольку они демонстрируиут интерес британской публики к русской культуре и политике. Многие книги из коллекций русской литературы были подарены Библиотеке Сэром Хегбергом Райтом. Многочисленные книги содержат дарственные надписи авторов, переводчиков и иллюстраторов, адресованные Райту. Одна из таких надписей, от иллюстратора Ивана Билибина, находится в издании СказокПушкина 1905 года. Копия Царства Aнтихриста, подаренная Библиотеке британским путешественником и писателем Стивеном Грэемом (Stephen Graham), содержит дарственную надпись Дмитрия Мережковского датированную 1925 годом, когда Мережковский и его жена Зинаида Гиппиус прибывали в эмиграции в Париже. Сэр Исайа Берлин, чья коллекция книг после его смерти частично перешла в фонд Лондонской Библиотеки, встерчался с Борисом Пастернаком в СССР в 1940-х годах. Свидетельство об одной из их встреч – дарственная надпись Пастернака на форзаце книги его стихов: “И.М. Берлину, Счастливая книга, она будет путешествовать и попадет вместо меня в Оксфорд! Б.Пастернак, 24 XII 1945, Москва”.

В настоящий момент Лондонская Библиотека активно комплектует печатные издания на русском языке, включая современную русскую прозу и поэзию. Подробная информация о Русских коллекциях доступна на сайте Библиотеки в разделе Introduction to the Collectionshttp://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/index.php?/books.html

Claudia Ricci offers an update from the Bibliographic Services team, demonstrating how geopolitics have a direct bearing on where books in our collections are shelved…

“Kingdoms rise and fall, nations come and go”, according to the Confucian precept, but in the stacks of The London Library, and particularly in the History section, shelfmarks have traditionally been immune to change. Actually, this may have been the case for many decades, but lately things have started to change, as even we have had to accept that some “new” countries are here to stay. Therefore you will notice that a handful of new shelfmarks have appeared in the History stacks: we have created new sub-sections for H. Belarus, H. Kazakhstan, H. Moldova and H. Ukraine.

Thanks to its policy of “preserving the original name of countries” the library had never adopted the heading “Soviet Union”, (after all this country only existed for a mere 70 years!), which makes our job easier today. Under  H. Russia you will still find many works that cover the past history of Ukraine or Belarus, as in the old medieval Chronicles, when the histories of the three countries were closely intertwined, or as in Soviet times, when all the socialist republics were treated as one country. But at least we no longer have to shelf Kuchma’s book “Ukraine is not Russia” in the section H. Russia…

Note: Eagle-eyed Library members will see a reference to the Library’s lack of an H. Ukraine shelfmark in the forthcoming issue of The London Library Magazine. This error should have been corrected before it went to print — our H. Ukraine shelfmark is alive and well! We hope you enjoy the books to be found there, along with the Magazine’s Hidden Corners piece on our Russian collections.

John Stuart Mill is an important figure in the history of The London Library and an intriguing presence in our institutional archive. Helen O’Neil, Head of Reader Services, continues her archival sleuthing.

In researching the Library’s archival records I want to do more than simply unearth those writers and thinkers who have been members of the Library throughout its history. I want to demonstrate the significance of membership.  One way of doing this is to take a single figure and delve deeply. With this in mind I have been tracking the economist, political theorist and most influential 19th century philosopher in the English language, John Stuart Mill, through the archive. Needless to say the archive has offered up a revealing picture of his engagement with, and use of the Library.

Mill’s name is not to be found in obvious places.  He is absent from the lists of past Library Presidents, Trustees and Committee Members but his elegant intellectual handprint can be seen dispersed throughout the collections to a much greater degree than we had perhaps previously realised. We have always known that Mill drew up the lists for the first Political Economy collection – this is evidenced in letters from him in the archive and in the 1841 minutes of the Library Book Committee.  We knew too that he donated books to the Library; there are several such donations in the Library’s Special Collections. These donations are personal and significant to him and include for instance the Commonplace Books of his father, the reformist James Mill.  I mentioned in an earlier blog too, that Mill introduced his step daughter Helen Taylor to the Library in the year before he died, and she edited and translated several of his works after his death in 1873.

In addition to this Mill’s donations turn up thrillingly, (and not infrequently) on the open shelves.  Sermons Preached in Boston on the Death of Abraham Lincoln; the Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President and The Special Report of the Anti-Slavery Conference held in Paris in 1867 are all examples of this. If you have recently been to see Daniel Day Lewis’s distilled performance as Lincoln, these donations demonstrate exactly how keenly Mill was watching America. He would follow up these donations with another in 1868 – Walt Whitman’s poetic panoramic of the American Civil War, Drum Taps.

Mill’s presence is also particularly prevalent in two other archival resources from which I have been gathering and collating data over the last month.  The first is a heavily annotated working copy of the Library’s first catalogue, and the second is the Library’s early Issue Books.  The annotated 1842 catalogue is an extraordinary Victorian document which reveals the level of Mill’s donations in 1841 was far greater than we had previously realised. 87 titles (numbering in excess of 240 volumes) are attributed to Mill in the annotated catalogue – only a handful of which are recorded in our much more contemporary records. In addition to this, Mill’s presence is unequivocally and impressively stamped in the Library’s early Issue Books which record the books issued during the very early years of the Library’s existence. I am half way through the Issue Books and have details of over 250 books Mill borrowed. To say he was an active regular user is an understatement.  Just look at the regularity and number of books he was borrowing during 1845.

There are several themes which play out both in both Mill’s issues and his donations.  The first is they are incredibly international in feel.  His donations are published in Paris, Dublin, Brussels, London, Berlin, Venice, Amsterdam, Bonn, Hamburg, Calcutta, Dresden, Milan, New York, San Francisco, Boston and Edinburgh; and his loans include books about all parts of the globe including Europe, America, India, Africa, Australia, Mexico, China and New Zealand. Mill donated an enormous amount of material in 1841 in French on the French Revolution including Mary Wollstonecraft’s View of the French Revolution – and both his donations and loans are in English, French, German, Italian and Latin.

For a man caricatured in a dress for his outspokenness on the position of women, most notably after the publication of The Subjection of Women, his loans reveal that he was not only reading books about women, he was reading and donating books written by women.  One of my favourites is The History of Margaret Catchpole: a Suffolk Girlpublished in 1846 by the Rev Richard Cobbold. Margret Catchpole was an extraordinary woman, who twice escaped the death sentence in the late 1790s for stealing a horse (she captured the popular imagination by riding 70 miles in 10 hours without a saddle) and for escaping prison by scaling a 22 foot wall disguised as a sailor.

To read Mill is to read work which is still relevant today.  He joined the Library in 1841 two years before he published Utilitarianism, and the major works which made his name were all published during his thirty two years of Library membership. On Liberty, one of Mill’s greatest legacies has never been out of print since it was published in 1859, an indicator of its enduring importance.

On May 8th this year it will be 140 years since John Stuart Mill died.  By then I hope to have wrestled out of obscurity both the books Mill donated and the books he borrowed from the Library and I will be mapping these against his published works.  UCL has an internationally recognised reputation in the Digital Humanities which I am hoping will show its value here as I attempt to use the mass of Victorian digitised material sloshing round the internet to triangulate Mill’s issues, donation and published works.

It is to this unique destination point that I am racing, with as much speed as I can muster, to meet Mr Mill.

© Helen O’Neill