Lost Books Found

While I was still mulling over the manuscript mystery of Mark Twain (see yesterday’s post), I came across an article by Heather Hollingsworth about the exciting recent discovery of sixty-nine of  Thomas Jefferson’s books.  Even better, the books had marginalia (see the ‘word power’ entry) and I was doubly thrilled that my week of library learning was coming together neatly.
Jefferson’s books were unearthed in the rare book collection at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. They had actually been there all along, just mixed in with a collection of 3,000 books that were donated to the library in 1880 when Jefferson’s granddaughter, Ellen Coolidge, died.  Imagine them sitting on the shelves for 130 years holding in their great secret!   The curator of the library, Ellen Davis, has welcomed historians and scholars to scour the collection to see if they can find even more of Jefferson’ books.
When Jefferson died in 1826 he had some large debts to be settle (he was definitely a proponent of the consumer culture) and 1,600 books from his personal library were put up on the auction block.  Ellen Coolidge, his granddaughter, understandably wanted some of her grandfather’s books to be kept for posterity so she wrote to her brother-in-law and asked him to buy some of the books for her, especially ones that included Jefferson’s notes (aha, marginalia).  She assured him that the books would not be sold again, just kept in the family.  For the past century scholars have assumed that the books had been scattered among other collections or kept in the family, they were happily stunned and surprised to find them in one place.  The library is ecstatic to have the 3rd largest collection of Thomas Jefferson’s books, after The Library of Congress and the University of Virginia (which TJ founded).
This mystery was really solved thanks to the hard work of Ann Lucas Birle and Endrina Tay, researchers who went in search of the lost library last year.  They ended up in Missouri after uncovering a connection between Ellen’s daughter and the University.  I certainly hope they get a finders fee or write a book or something.
It just makes you wonder what else is out there, hiding in the bookshelves or under someone’s bed - maybe some Shakespeare, or the rest of Steig Larson’s series?  I’ve done some checking and all I see are dust bunnies...darn.