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Samuel Hollister Rogers diaries

Mormon Battalion Soldiers, by William Maughan

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Samuel Hollister Rogers diaries (MSS 1134). This collection includes two volumes of original handwritten reminiscences and diaries of Samuel Hollister Rogers from 1841 to 1886. Rogers writes about his life as a Mormon in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He also tells about his service with the Mormon Battalion, his migration to Utah from California in 1848, his missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his involvement in polygamy. He also talks about his experiences in Salt Lake City, Lehi, and Parowan, Utah, and his pioneering efforts in Snowflake, Arizona, and in Mexico.

Samuel Hollister Rogers (1819-1891)

Samuel H. Rogers was born on March 1, 1819, in Palmyra, Ohio, to parents Chandler Rogers and Amanda Hollister. In 1837, when he was nineteen-years-old, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Shortly after, in 1838, he and his family moved to Far West, Missouri, to be with other Church members. In 1840, Rogers was called and ordained as a member of The Quorum of the Seventy. He helped build and guard the Nauvoo temple in Illinois and went west with the Saints when they immigrated to Utah. During the immigration he served in the Mormon Battalion where he was a private in Company B. He married Anna Matilda Doolittle on March 7, 1850, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and together they had seven children. Rogers also raised Anna’s daughter from her first marriage. After immigrating to Utah, Rogers served as a bishop in Parowan, Utah, and eventually helped settle new towns in Arizona, and Mexico. Samuel Hollister Rogers died on September 22, 1891, in Snowflake, Arizona.

Leigh and Berry family papers

Dan Jones Awakens Wales, by Clark Kelley Price

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Leigh and Berry family papers (MSS 3319). This collection contains various papers related to the family of William David Leigh and Elizabeth Wood, and the family of William Shanks Berry and Rebecca Rocena Beck. Includes a journal and other documents related to William David Leigh’s service as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Mission, primarily in Wales, from 1888-1891. Also includes some genealogical information and family histories related to the William David Leigh and William Shanks Berry families,  including a scrapbook with some information on the death of Elder William Shanks Berry who was killed in Tennessee in 1884 while serving as a missionary for the Church in the Southern States Mission. Items in collection dated approximately 1888-1967.

William David Leigh (1842-1917) and Elizabeth Davis Wood (1852-1943) were married on July 9, 1876, in Cedar City, Utah, and they had six sons and one daughter: William Henry (1877-1959), Samuel Bernard George (1879-1912), John Milton Wood (1882-1884), Rufus Wood (1884-1964), Stephen Franklin Wood (1887-1890), Ruby Elizabeth (1891-1974), and Elias Wood (1894-1981).

William Berry Shanks (1838-1884) and Rebecca Rocena Beck (1842-1903) were married on November 22, 1860, in Spanish Fork, Utah, and they had two sons and eight daughters: William Alfred (1861-1861), Armelia Rebecca (1863-1946), Hannah Margaret (1865-1932), Harriet Louisa (1967-1948), Lucilla Diantha (1870-1930), Rocena Adeline (1873-1873), Mary Wilhelmina (1874-1960), John William (1877-1928), Martha Eleanor “Ella” (1879-1980), Minnie Malvina (1883-1979).

Charles Ora Card papers

Charles Ora Card (1839-1906)

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Charles Ora Card papers (MSS 1543).  This collection contains materials pertaining to the life and work of Charles Ora Card, and includes personal journals, letters, and office journals ranging from 1871 to 1903. They cover Card’s responsibilities in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints both in Logan, Utah and Southern Canada as well as construction of various canals, roads, and buildings. They also discuss his relationships in polygamy, the colonization of Alberta, Canada by Mormon pioneers including association with the Canadian government, and documentation of much of the history of Logan, Utah and Cardston, Canada while he resided in each place. Materials dated 1871-1903.

Charles Ora Card was born on November 5, 1839 to Cyrus William Card and Sarah Ann Tuttle. The Card family became associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1843. charles was baptized by his Uncle, April 12, 1856. He crossed the plains as part of a handcart company arriving in Salt Lake Valley September 1856. Charles became a member of 56th quorum of the Seventy, in Farmington before his family moved to Logan in March 1860. While in Logan, he was involved in education, building of the Logan Tabernacle and the Logan Temple, as well as became the Cache Stake President. Early in 1887, Charles was asked by John Taylor to relocate and settle southern Alberta, Canada with a group of saints, though his not all of his families and wives and came with him. He established the town of Cardston. He was over the Canadian Mission and then the Stake President of the Alberta Stake for about twelve years starting in 1890. He was released as Stake President and became a patriarch September 1902. He was carried to Logan in December 1903 and he died in Logan September 9, 1906.

Robert Beale collection of letters

This sketch of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was drawn to accompany Robert Beale’s official record of the proceedings.

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Robert Beale collection letters (Vault MSS 457).  This collection contains official correspondence of the Kingdom of England and Wales in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, found among the personal papers of Robert Beale. Most letters are either by him or to him. They deal with the earliest years of the Dutch Republic and the part played by England in the Dutch revolt. Many of the letters were also originally addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham (1530-1590), Beale’s brother-in-law, and Elizabeth’s Secretary of State. Four letters are addressed to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532?-1588) who commanded English troops sent to assist the Dutch in 1585 and 1586. Five letters by Thomas Wilkes (1545?-1598) are found in summary in the Great Britain Public Record Office’s Calendar of State Papers. Materials dated 1569-1592.

Robert Beale (1541-1601) served as ambassador to France starting in 1570, special envoy of queen Elizabeth to the German Lutheran princes 1576, Secretary of State 1578 and 1581-1583, and was in parliament from Dorchester in 1586 and 1588. In addition, he served under Leicester in 1588 in the Netherlands probably with the transport department. As a scholar he is known for two books which maintain the principle of toleration and for works glorifying marriage and women.

Nancy Alexander Tracy autobiography

Nancy Naomi Alexander Tracy (1816-1902)

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Nancy Alexander Tracy autobiography (MSS 2214).  This item includes an eighty-two-page holograph where Nancy Tracy, an early Utah pioneer, reflects on her early life in New York state; marriage to Moses Tracy in 1832; conversion to Mormonism in 1834; occasional interactions with Joseph Smith Jr.; and experiences with her husband in New York in 1844. It also includes information on her activities in Kirtland, Ohio; Far West, Missouri; Nauvoo, Illinois; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Winter Quarters, Nebraska; and Ogden, Utah. She also comments on her emigration to Utah in 1850 and a temporary move from Ogden to Provo in 1857.

A typescript copy made by Zina Hall in 1994 is available in Special Collections.

John H. Strang memorandum

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: John H. Strang memorandum (MSS 3893). The formal and much longer title of the item is A memorandum of the family of Daniel d’Estrange and of Charlotte his wife who escaped from France in the year of 1685 in the persecution under Louis XIV and came to America in the year 1688 and settled at New Rochelle in the County of Westchester, then Province of New York. This item is a small book by John Strang (also called Uncle John D’Estrange), written for his niece, Sarah Ann Strang. The memorandum tells about the persecution of the Protestant D’Estrange family, John D’Estrange’s immigration to America, his dislike of Catholics and Jesuits, the visit of a man who claimed to be D’Estrange’s son left with guards in France, a list of children of Daniel D’Estrange and Charlotte Hubert.

James J. Strang (1813-1856)

A photocopy from Doyle C. Fitzpatrick’s book The King Strang story : a vindication of James J. Strang, the Beaver Island Mormon King includes a typed version of the journal and some information about James Jesse Strang.

John Hazard Strang was born in Yorktown, Westchester, New York on June 7, 1785. His parents were Henry Strang and Margaret Hazard. He married Elizabeth Ann Purdy in Yorktown on September 20, 1812. His three children were Alsop H. (b.1813), John Grant (b. 1815) and Alvan Purdy (1817). He had a niece named Sarah Ann Strang and dedicated this history of the d’Estrange family to her. He passed away on July 4, 1878 in Yorktown, New York.  The exact relationship between John H. Strang and James Jesse Strang is unclear.

Two Decadent Dandies: Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm in the Outrageous 1890s

August 21 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of well-known British artist Aubrey Beardsley. Three days later, August 24, is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Beardsley’s friend, caricaturist and essayist Max Beerbohm. As young men, both artists shocked English society with their boundary-pushing creativity, becoming celebrities in literary and artistic circles in early 1890s London.

A humorist, Beerbohm parodied high society and the prominent artists and writers of the 1890s through caricatures and comical essays which sometimes shocked the establishment. He would go on to have a long career, publishing 15 books and thousands of caricatures, and even broadcasting essays over BBC radio. He is still remembered for his sparkling wit and his ties to major figures of British arts and letters, including George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

Beardsley’s career was brief, troubled, and revolutionary. He gained immediate notoriety for his unique illustration style, but his penchant for blending beauty with the grotesque polarized both critics and the public. Though he died at the young age of 25, his work transformed the world of art and design and still inspires artists today.

To commemorate their work and friendship, Special Collections has mounted a new small exhibit. Two Decadent Dandies: Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm in the Outrageous 1890s showcases drawings, books, and periodicals produced by the two artists when they were just finding success in the world of arts and letters. The exhibit is on display in Special Collections’ lobby through the month of August.

Special Collections authors you’ve never heard of: Charles Lever

Title page of Lever’s first novel, The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Brown)

June 1 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Victorian novelist Charles Lever (1806-1872). Lever was born into a middle-class Anglo-Irish family. He began writing to supplement his income while training to become a physician. He quickly found success writing rollicking tales of Ireland and of military life, drawing on his childhood in Dublin and his travels to continental Europe, where he would permanently settle. Lever authored 30 novels and numerous essays and stories during a career that spanned over four decades.

Lever was a close contemporary of Charles Dickens and William Thackeray, and nearly as popular with readers of the early Victorian period. They published with the same firms and worked with the same illustrators. Like Dickens and Thackeray, Lever edited a literary journal (the Dublin University Magazine, from 1842-45), and he contributed essays and serialized novels to the major literary magazines of the day. Lever’s novel A Day’s Ride was published alongside Dickens’ Great Expectations in All the Year Round in 1860 and 1861.

Yet Lever, despite his early success, gradually fell out of favor with readers and is virtually forgotten today. Critic Stephen Haddesley attributes Lever’s fall from popularity in part to the unevenness of his literary output. Lever typically worked on two novels simultaneously to be able to keep up with the demands of serial publication and his gambling habit. He was never diligent at plotting, and his rushed writing schedule was also thwarted at times by installations getting delayed or lost in the mail (the ending of The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer had to be completely rewritten due to a shipping mishap). Critics also note that Lever’s depictions of Ireland challenged both his Irish and English audiences. As an expatriate observing Irish society from Europe, Lever’s writing did not always conform to the sociopolitical views of either side, perhaps contributing to his waning popularity.

Special Collections owns copies of 18 of Lever’s novels, including several titles in their original monthly parts. Many feature illustrations by Hablot Knight Brown, also known as “Phiz,” who is perhaps best known for illustrating Oliver Twist.

Newly-digitized rare literature

The HBLL has been scanning items from the Rare Books Collections which have recently entered the public domain. Selected items published between 1924 and 1926 are now available in the library’s repository at the Internet Archive. Highlights include works by Rudyard Kipling, Eugene O’Neill, and H.G. Wells. More material from Special Collections’ holdings will be added throughout the year.

Two Bibles of 1522

2022 marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of two important early Bible translations.

A leaf from volume 4 of the Complutensian Polyglot (Ezekiel 10:4-11:9)

The Complutensian Polyglot or Bible of Alcalá was the first Bible to include the text in multiple languages (in this case, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic). The project was conceived by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, a powerful Spanish religious leader. Cisneros acquired a number of Biblical manuscripts and enlisted a group of Spanish scholars, including several converts from Judaism, to edit the texts. The scholars met at the Complutense University in the city of Alcalá de Henares, from which this Bible edition takes its name. Their work began in 1502. They were able to print copies of the polyglot New Testament in 1514, but held back publication until the Old Testament was complete.

Title page of the 1522 Erasmus New Testament

As the Complutense University translators continued their work, Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus learned of the project. Erasmus was working on an edition of the Greek New Testament compiled from newly-discovered manuscripts which would be accompanied by his new Latin translation. He secured a special four-year privilege from both the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, which gave him exclusive license over publishing the Greek Bible, in 1516. So when the Complutensian translation was completed in 1517, publication was delayed until the Pope could grant approval in 1520. Scholars believe that the Complutensian Bible was not widely published until 1522.

Meanwhile, Erasmus continued to refine his dual-language Greek and Latin New Testament. Because he rushed his edition to the press, many typographical errors appeared in the 1516 edition. A second edition appeared in 1519, and a third edition in 1522. The 1522 edition would later be used as a major source for the translators of the King James Version of the Bible in the early 17th century.

Special Collections owns an original copy of the 1522 Erasmus New Testament, and two leaves from the 6 volume Complutensian Bible. One leaf accompanies a full facsimile of the 6-volume Complutensian Bible which was published in 1987; the other (shown above) is part of a leaf book about polyglot Bibles.

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