Release date: Sept. 24, 2004
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or deb.hammacher@emory.edu

Emory is Given Largest Private English Language Poetry Library

It took four tractor trailers to transport Raymond Danowski's collection of English language poetry to Emory University, but even those four trailers may not be enough to encompass the impact Danowski's gift will have on Emory and the scholarship of poetry in the years to come. The breadth and quality of the collection are breathtaking.

Highlights include the rare first printing of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" (1855); T.S. Eliot's "Prufrock and Other Observations" (1917), inscribed to "Miss Emily Hale" by the author; W.H. Auden's first collection of poems, privately printed; Allen Ginsberg's second book, "Siesta in Xbalba," printed on a mimeograph machine on a ship near Icy Cape, Alaska.     

The collection, considered the largest ever built by a private collector, comprises some 60,000 books as well as tens of thousands of periodicals, manuscripts, correspondence and other materials, and makes the university one of the world's most renowned destinations for the study of contemporary English-language poetry, according to Stephen Enniss, director of special collections at Emory. Already nationally recognized for its literary archives, the Woodruff Library's special collections now takes its place as "one of the major literary archives in the English speaking world," says National Endowment of the Arts Chairman and poet Dana Gioia, who gave a poetry recitation at a recent event celebrating the gift.

"This gift identifies and establishes Emory as one of the major centers of poetry in the world," says Ronald Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English, a member of an Emory team that began conversations with Danowski about the collection in 1996. "People are already saying that, if you want to study 20th-century poetry, you go to Emory. That's it."

Rare and near-invaluable books like these may sparkle--Christie's recently auctioned off a similar copy of "Leaves of Grass" for $160,000, says special collections director Stephen Enniss--but the real value of the Danowski collection is in the sheer breadth of its gems.

"I call it 'building a snowflake,'" Danowski said of putting together the library, which reaches beyond poetry to writing on important issues of the 20th century, such as the struggles in Ireland, the Vietnam War, and the punk movement in London. "There's a certain symmetrical quality to it. It's more than just a catalog of first editions of poetry, and that's where it's sort of like a snowflake. It has a pattern to it."

A retired London art dealer who now resides in South Africa, Danowski began his efforts in the 1970s. Soon he became a full-fledged bibliophile, and as years passed and his collection grew, Danowski and his books began to attract interest themselves. He formed Poets' Trust, a foundation to manage the collection, and soon his obsession with building the library became an obsession with finding a proper home for it.

But there was one problem: By the early '90s, Danowski's collection was so massive that selling it whole would be impossible; no single buyer could pay what it was worth. He would either have to break it up or essentially give it away. Once he learned the kind of home Emory would provide for the collection, Danowski chose the second option.

In fact, until his visit to Emory this month, Danowski had never seen many of the items since they had been sent directly to storage warehouses in London and Geneva from book dealers, and he had not seen his life's work of collection gathered together all in one place.

But the collector wanted more than just safety; Danowski didn't want his efforts of nearly three decades to languish inside a steel vault. He wants these materials to be shared and celebrated within the world of literary scholarship. And that's exactly what Emory can deliver.

"This collection will draw scholars from around the world; it will enable us to hold international conferences," says Schuchard, adding that just such a conference will be held next fall on British poet Ted Hughes. "It will enable us to teach students on a level that would not otherwise have been possible."

"Whole chapters of the literary history of our time will be written here at Emory," Enniss said. "This gift makes Emory a true destination for literary scholarship."

In the meantime, the task of cataloging the Danowski collection unfolds. Enniss said it will be years before everything is fully recorded and described, but every box and wooden crate is a treasure chest of verse.

"Some of the items take your breath away," Enniss says, looking at the copy of "Leaves of Grass," displayed adjacent to other works of less renown but similar scholarly value. "Others are so rare that people had no idea they even existed."

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