PERSONAL LIBRARIES LIBRARY
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
I have started the Personal Libraries Library, a specially-curated lending library located in Portland, Oregon. The Library is dedicated to recreating the personal libraries of artists, philosophers, scientists, writers and other thinkers & makers. The collection has commenced with the personal library of Maria Mitchell, the 19th-century astronomer, librarian, educator and suffragist.
The Personal Libraries Library has acquired the first book of the Maria Mitchell Personal Library collection: Emerson’s Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This book is particularly special because it is also the inaugural book of the entire Personal Libraries Library.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maria Mitchell were good friends; when he lectured in Nantucket he was welcomed into the Mitchell household above the Pacific Bank on Main Street. Mitchell also found herself defending the work of Emerson to Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College in 1857.
To join the Library, please contact personallibraries@gmail.com and visit the PLL website at www.personallibrarieslibrary.com