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About Evergreen :: The Garrett Library
[ Evergreen History | Museum Collections |
Garrett Library Overview
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The Garrett Library collection includes 16th- and 17th- century English literature and history, including a portion of the Tudor and Stuart collection, and is especially strong in the works of Shakespeare, Bacon, Spenser, and Milton. There is also a fine collection of incunabula.
The natural history collection includes many of the most important and beautiful ornithological works ever produced, including John James Audubon's "double elephant folio" edition of the Birds of America (1827-1838). Other rarities include Audubon's Quadrupeds of North America, a complete set of the works of British naturalist John Gould, and Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology (1808-1813).
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A significant collection of voyage and exploration literature can also be found at the Garrett Library, including Christopher Columbus's letter to Queen Isabella, De Insuli in Mari Indico (1494). This collection is complemented by another that concentrates on American colonial travel and history, with the core represented in the reference work, Seventeenth Century Maryland: A Bibliography, compiled by the former Garrett Librarian, Elizabeth Baer.
The Garrett Library also includes a large collection of Bibles, the autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and other American manuscripts, various maps dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries, children's literature of the 19th century, Civil War broadsides and pamphlets, and the papers and drawings of Baltimore architect, Laurence Hall Fowler (d. 1971).
Please direct all inquiries regarding the Garrett Library and use of its collections to:
Earle Havens, Curator of Rare BooksFor more detailed information about specific collection highlights, browse through the information below.
Special Collections and Archives
Milton S. Eisenhower Library
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218Phone: (410) 516-8662
E-mail: earle.havens@jhu.edu
Hours: By appointment only
The Garrett Library has a noteworthy collection of
Americana, particularly of 17th-century books relating to
Maryland, printed for the most part in London (209 items),
and books describing the American colonies and printed in
London, Paris, and elsewhere before 1800. It also contains
a large collection of American imprints until 1800 printed
in Philadelphia, New York, Annapolis, Baltimore, Cambridge,
and Boston, including the first book printed in Baltimore:
John Redick-Le-Man's A Detection of the Conduct and
Proceedings of Messrs. Annan and Henderson (1765).
Elizabeth Baer, the former Garrett Rare Books Librarian,
included these volumes in her: Seventeenth Century
Maryland, A Bibliography. Introduction by Lawrence C.
Wroth. Baltimore: The John Work Garrett Library, 1949.
American Revolution
The Garrett's library has a fine manuscript collection of
signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as
presidents of the United States. There are also letters
written by members of the Continental Congress when it was
meeting in Baltimore in 1777.
Civil War
A collection of more than 500 Civil War broadsides at the
Garrett Library represent both Northern and Southern views.
They are primarily political and military in their
orientation. For the North, there are broadsides concerning
soldiers and the draft, battles of the war, Abraham Lincoln
as savior of the Union, Pro-McClellan political poetry for
his presidential campaign in 1864, Northern sentiment and
pro-Union propaganda. For the South, the collection covers
the founding of the Confederate States of America, divided
Baltimore, Southern military and political leaders, Abraham
Lincoln as a tyrant and a traitor, and Southern sentiment
and pro-Confederacy propaganda. Complementing the
broadsides are the Garrett Library Collection of Civil War
Pamphlets consisting of 102 volumes containing
approximately 1,200 titles. The subject matters covered are
very diverse and include southern school textbooks, battle
reports (both official and personal narratives), military
biographies, Confederate Army regulation and drill manuals,
laws of the Confederate States of America, speeches in the
United States Congress, and other topics. The collections
are detailed in "Civil War Resources in Special
Collections" available in the department (Spec.Coll.Ref
E647.M5 1994).
The Fowler Collection of Early Architectural
Books
The original Fowler Architectural library was made up of
448 items, featuring Vitruvius (40 editions, from 1495) and
the five great protagonists of Renaissance architecture:
Alberti (14 editions, from 1485), Serlio (33 editions, from
1545), Palladio (32 editions, from 1554), Vignola (39
editions, from 1563), and Scamozzi (13 editions, from
1583), as well as works by English, French and German
architects. The collection is fully described in The
Fowler Architectural Collection of the Johns Hopkins
University, compiled by Laurence Hall Fowler and
Elizabeth Baer (Baltimore: The Evergreen House Foundation,
1961). The volume was reprinted in 1991 in San Francisco by
Alan Wofsy Fine Arts.
In the 1970s, William A. Gumberts and others significantly
augmented Fowler's collection with their gifts. A microfilm
edition of the expanded Fowler collection is available from
Primary Source Media. The Fowler Collection is one of the
most important collections of early works on classical and
Renaissance architecture in the United States. The library
continues to add titles to the Fowler Collection, which now
numbers 569.
Complementing Fowler's book collection are most of the
working papers from his architectural practice which
specialized in residences and public buildings in Baltimore
from 1906-45. Included also are Fowler's photographs
documenting other architects' work in the area from 1915 to
1920.
Incunabula
The Garrett Library has one hundred forty incunabula,
including Thomas Aquinas's De Articulis Fidei,
printed in Mainz before 1460; Lactantius's Opera,
printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at the Subiaco Press in
1465, the first dated book printed in Italy and the first
appearance of Greek type in any printed book; and a first
edition of Euclid, 1482. The collection also contains
interesting incunabula printed in the vernacular, such as
Caxton's Chronicles of England, Westminster, 1480
(English); Aesop's Vita et Fabulae, Augsburg, 1483
(German); Rolevinck's Fasciulus Temporum, Utrecht,
1480 (Dutch); Valera's Cronica de Espana, Seville,
1482 (Spanish); and Chroniques de Louis XI, Lyons,
1490 (French).
John Work Garrett Collection of American Discovery and
Exploration
A life-long interest of John Garrett's is reflected in this
collection, which includes Columbus' letter to Queen
Isabella, De Insulis in Mari Indico (Basel, 1494),
in which he describes the discovery of America with the
first printed illustrations of the New World; Richard
Eden's annotated copy of Peter Martyr's De Rebus Oceanis
& Orbe Nove (Basel, 1533), which Eden used for his
translation Decades of the Newe World (London,
1955); and Thomas Hariot's A Briefe and True Report of
the New Found Land of Virginia (Frankfort, 1590).
Another English explorer and colonist represented in the
Garrett collections is John Smith (1580-1631), who helped
to found the colony of Jamestown, Virginia, and who led
exploring expeditions up the Potomac and Rappahannock
rivers and around the Chesapeake Bay. He was prolific in
describing his discoveries in several books which are
included in the Garrett Library; among these are his
Generall historie of Virginia (1624) and The true
travels, adventures, and observations of Captaine John
Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (1630).
The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw the
publication of many important compilations of early
voyages. Theodor de Bry's Collectiones peregrinationum
in Indiam orientalium et Indiam occidentalem, issued
between 1590 and 1634, was a monumental undertaking of two
series — the "Great Voyages" which relate to North
and South America, and the "Small Voyages" which relate to
the East Indies and Africa. Although the plan was to
publish all parts in Latin, German, English, and French,
only the first part of the "Great Voyages" was ever
published in this four language format. All other parts
were issued in German and Latin only. The Garrett Library
has copies of the first volume, Thomas Hariot's A briefe
and true report of the new found land of Virginia
(1590), in all four languages, the French one containing
particularly fine hand-colored illustrations. These
illustrations had a great impact on the European image of
the New World. The remaining volumes of the Garrett set of
the "Great" and "Small" voyages are printed in Latin only.
These volumes include accounts of the voyages of Francis
Drake, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Willem Schouten, and
others. The eighteenth century witnessed the voyages of
James Cook (1728-1779), an English explorer who sailed to
many parts of the world including Antarctica and who was
killed in a native ambush in the Hawaiian islands. In the
United States in the early nineteenth century, Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark explored the continent of North
America and reached the Pacific Ocean in 1806. The Garrett
Library has several editions of the history of their
expedition.
Collection Highlights
Americana
Americana
American Revolution
Civil War
The Fowler Collection of Early
Architectural Books
Incunabula
John Work Garrett Collection of American
Discovery and Exploration
Maps and Atlases
Natural History
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Special Collections
EVERGREEN MUSEUM & LIBRARY | The Johns
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Baltimore, MD 21210 |
Phone 410-516-0341 | Email
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© 2008 The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland. Last updated 04Sep08 by dgips@jhu.edu