Rare Book Monthly

Articles - October - 2017 Issue

William R. Cagle, former Lilly Librarian

William R, Cagle, former Lilly Librarian

William R, Cagle, former Lilly Librarian

On the University of Indiana website notice of the death of William R, Cagle, former Lilly Librarian, who died in Paris last week at the age of 83, was recently posted.

 

We provide here his In Memoriam that is signed by Joel Silver.

 

All of us at the Lilly Library were saddened to learn of the passing of William R. Cagle, former Lilly Librarian, who died in Paris last week at the age of 83.  Bill worked at the Library from 1967 until his retirement in 1997, and so many of the significant books, manuscripts, and collections that are now such important parts of the Lilly Library are here because of Bill’s efforts.

 

William Cagle was born in Hollywood, California in 1933. After studies at UCLA and Oxford, and military service in the U.S. Army, he began his library career at the Huntington Library in 1960 as Assistant to the Librarian.  In 1962, he accepted the position of Librarian for English at Indiana University, and in 1967, he moved to the Lilly Library as Assistant Lilly Librarian, where he worked closely with Lilly Librarian David A. Randall, the first to serve in that position.  In 1975, following Randall’s death, Bill became Acting Librarian, and in 1977, he was named Lilly Librarian, a post that he held until his retirement in November 1997.

Bill was, above all, a bookman, and he excelled in his collection-building activities.  He greatly augmented many of the Library’s already strong collecting areas, including British, American, and French literature; American history; and voyages and travels, and he pioneered a number of new collecting subjects for the Library, including film and popular culture; cookbooks; miniature books; and modern fine bindings.  Many of the Library’s most popular and frequently-used collections, including manuscripts of Sylvia Plath, Nadine Gordimer, Ezra Pound, Orson Welles, and John Ford; the Elisabeth Ball Collection of Historical Children’s Materials; and the Gernon Collection of Historical Cookbooks, were among his many major acquisitions.

Bill also instituted a systematic standing order system for first editions of newly-published British and American literary works, which he initiated when he first arrived at the Library in 1967.  After a half-century of this broad and deep collecting activity, the Lilly Library now holds an outstanding collection of modern literature, which we are continuing to build.  Bill was also responsible for securing funds to establish fellowships for visiting scholars to make use of the Lilly Library collections, and the Everett Helm Visiting Fellowships and the Mendel Fellowships are now awarded annually to help scholars with their research in the Library’s collections.

Following Bill’s retirement in 1997, he and his wife, Terry, moved to Maine, where they lived for several years, before moving to Paris, where Bill had served in the Army in the 1950s.  Bill had long been a Francophile, and he and Terry fully enjoyed the cultural pleasures that Paris offered.  Throughout his retirement, Bill continued to be a devoted reader of booksellers’ catalogues, and his perceptive and timely recommendations helped us to fill a number of significant gaps in the Library’s holdings.

During Bill’s time at the Library, one of his great pleasures was the writing of the Annual Report of the Lilly Librarian, in which he recounted his most interesting acquisitions of the previous year.  Bill had an excellent eye for books, and he was always looking for the exceptional or special copy of any book that he wished to add to the Library’s collections. A selection of Bill’s most important acquisitions was described in A Splendid Gathering: Twenty-two Years of Collecting at the Lilly Library, 1975-1997 (Bloomington, Indiana: The Lilly Library, 1997), the exhibition assembled at the Library in honor of his retirement (this catalogue may be viewed online).

The use of the word “Splendid” in the title of A Splendid Gathering highlights Bill’s loftiest word of praise for a special book.  A particularly interesting book might be described by Bill in his Annual Report as a “splendid copy,” and an especially remarkable book might merit two instances of “splendid,” used to describe different aspects of the book. Only once, to the best of my knowledge, did Bill go beyond that, when, in the Annual Reportfor July 1987-June 1988, he described an especially notable recent acquisition.  I’ll let Bill speak for himself:

“It is always a pleasure to find a book someone has particularly asked for but rarely does it happen with quite such spectacular success as in the case of fine arts professor Louis Hawes’s request for Baron Zurlauben’s Tableaux topographiques, pittoresques, physiques, politiques, moraux, litteraries de la Suisse (Paris 1780-1786).  Professor Hawes mentioned, in the spring of 1987, that a facsimile of Zurlauben’s famous work on Swiss topography had been published and asked if the Lilly Library would purchase a copy.  We said we would prefer to look for a copy of the original.  That, he said, would be difficult and expensive, but if we could find one it would be his once-in-a-lifetime request.  Good fortune was with us, and a copy far exceeding our expectations was found in a Paris bookstore that summer.

The Tableaux topographiques was published in five large folio volumes and contains 400 engravings after drawings by the best French artists of the time.  The artists were sent to Switzerland especially to execute works for this project.  The copy acquired for the Lilly, with 278 of the engravings in unlettered proof state, belonged to Mary Boydell, niece of the celebrated London engraver and print seller John Boydell, and was bound for her in full red morocco by Deróme. It passed from Mary Boydell to the library of William Beckford and was in the Hamilton Palace sale of Beckford’s books (Sotheby catalogue, June 1882, item 668). It’s a splendid provenance for a splendid copy of a splendid work. Mr. Lilly would have approved.”

I think that Mr. Lilly would have approved of all of Bill Cagle’s acquisitions for the library that bears his family’s name, and he also would have greatly admired the passion, energy, and commitment that Bill brought to his duties as Lilly Librarian.  Bill was a splendid librarian and collection builder, and he will be greatly missed by all of us here at the Lilly Library.

Sic transit Gloria mundi

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale
    April 30th & May 1st
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) & Egan (Felim) artist. Squarings, Twelve Poems, D. (Hieroglyph Editions Ltd.) 1991. €1,750 to €2,250.
  • Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT. "Scene af: Røverne i Vissenberg i Fyen." in Harpen, 1822.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST THREE FAIRY TALE PAMPHLETS, WITH ALL INDICES AND TITLE PAGES. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: THE FIRST FAIRY TALES WITH A SIGNED CARTE DE VISITE OF ANDERSEN AS FRONTIS. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: KARL LAGERFELD. Original pastel and ink drawing in gold, red and black for Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes (1992), "La cassette de l'Empereur."
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY OF THE SIXTH PAMPHLET FOR PETER KOCH. Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn, Second Series, Third Pamphlet. 1841. Publisher's wrappers, complete with all pre- and post-matter.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN RARE AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED IN ENGLISH from "The Ugly Duckling," c.1860s.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HEINRICH LEFLER, ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR FOR ANDERSEN'S SNOW QUEEN, "Die Schneekönigin," 1910.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST EDITION OF ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH. Wonderful Stories for Children. London, 1846.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN ON MEETING CHARLES DICKENS. Autograph Letter Signed ("H.C. Andersen") in English to William Jerdan, July 20, 1847.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR EDGAR COLLIN. Nye Eventyr og Historier. Anden Raekke. 1861.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: DOLL HOUSE FURNITURE BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, DECORATED WITH FANTASTICAL CUT-OUTS, for the children of Jonna Stampe (née Drewsen), his godchildren.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR GEORG BRANDES. Dryaden. Et Eventyr fra Udstillingstiden i Paris 1867. 1868.

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