THE JOHN CARTER BROWN LIBRARY.
tTo THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
auk—The Spectator is- always so astoniehingly well informed about-American matters that it seems invidious to point out a slight error in- your issue of February 19th, p. 243, column 2, referring to the Annual Report of the John Carter Brown Library at Providence, R.I. Your paragraph says : "The John Carter Brown Library is, next to the New York Library, the richest public collection 'of rare books in America." This is not really accurate. It is the greatest collection of Americana in the United, States, with the possible exception of the library of Congress; it is strictly limited, however, to Americana printed before 1800. There are, of course, many other libraries which have far larger treasures of rare books in other fields. If the sentence had read " richest public collection of rare books on America" it would have been entirely accurate.—I am,
Previous page
