Presentation Copies in the Sandburg Library

IN 1956 the University of Illinois acquired the library of Carl Sandburg. The collection included, first of all, the works of Sandburg himself, original editions of his verse and prose, as well as translations into Swedish, French, Spanish, Por-tuguese, Burmese, and other languages. There are numerous volumes to which Sandburg contributed prefaces or forewords , brochures, pamphlets, and copies of magazines containing articles or poems. Included too are hundreds of letters to Sandburg, typescripts and galley proofs of the voluminous Lincoln biography , clippings, lists, notes, annotated excerpts from various periodicals, bound magazines, federal documents, memoirs, and histories. Not all the items are strictly literary since the bulk of the material is swelled by photographs, scrapbooks, phonograph records, a collection of postage stamps with a portrait of Lincoln, an album of Lincoln pennies, souvenirs, and memorabilia. But one of the most interesting sections of the library consists of the books sent to Carl Sandburg as gifts, almost always inscribed by the authors and occasionally annotated by the recipient himself. Every author attracts to himself as a magnet does steel filings the literary work of others, the books of friends as a matter of course but also publishers' gifts, the volumes of specialists in the same field, presentation copies sent by contemporary celebrities, and invariably the fledging work of y9ung poets and novelists sent through admiration and pride, or (so they sincerely say) in the hope of criticism. Probably no one is so aware of the enormous amount of verse published by private presses or as prestige items by commercial presses as the established poet who has himself won ]ANUARY ,-196} success in print and very likely on the lecture platform. His weekly mail swells his library shelves with thin, often handsome , and generally unwanted volumes. Presentation copies in the Sandburg library are curiously miscellaneous. There are a large number of high school annuals , sometimes dedicated to Sandburg but more often including a few lines from a Sandburg poem which are printed before the endless succession of photographs of the graduates. The collection includes a number of copies of Good Reading, a bibliographical list; a teaching manual from the Altoona, Pennsyl-vania, school system; a heavy and dull tome entitled The Forest Preserves of Cook County Illinois (Chicago, 3d e<)., 1921); a book on health entitled The Therapeutics of Activity (Chicago, 1916); and a translation from the Italian, The Pirotechnia …