Friends, the above is the greatest list of personal interests, ever constructed. Bar none. It comes from the Who Was Who 1916-1928 listing for English journalist and dramatist George Sims (1847-1922). (The Who Was Who list is actually entitled “recreations,” which may help explain why I find it so charming.) Tucked away on the Rosenbach’s shelves is a small collection of Sims’s papers. This week our friends from the PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative are on site helping us get a sense of what’s in our un- and under-cataloged manuscript collections. Their services are invaluable. I hope they won’t be offended by my saying that if nothing else comes out of this project, just finding George Sims’s list of personal interests has made the whole thing worthwhile for me, personally. Sure, some you might be interested in the letter Sims wrote about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s interest in the occult, but how important is that, really? Battledore and shuttlecock, bull-dogs and motoring, I say! A few of the other collections they’ve been looking at include:
- Katherine Minehart Lewis Carroll Collection
- John Thurloe Papers (Thurloe was Oliver Cromwell’s Secretary of State.)
- William, Earl Nelson Papers (Older brother to Horatio, the hero of Trafalgar)
- Phil Phillips Papers (Archaeologist, accomplished amateur Joycean)
- Rufus King Papers (Signer of the U.S. Constitution, advisor to Alexander Hamilton)
plus some additional uncataloged Rosenbach Company/Rosenbachiana and Marianne Moore material.
We’ll let you know if anything exciting turns up.