The John Russell Bartlett Society

The John Russell Bartlett Society began our season with two events celebrating the French bibliophile and author Octave Uzanne. Uzanne scholars Valerie Steele and Willa Silverman offered lectures on aspects of Uzanne's wide-ranging interests and accomplishments, including his role as an influential fin-de-siècle collector and taste-maker. In April, Will Quinn of the Rhode Island School of Design won this year's Margaret Bingham Stillwell Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting for his collection of books illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Nicholas Basbanes discussed the history of paper at the Stillwell prize ceremony. We began May with a lecture by Thomas Horrocks, Director of Special Collections at Brown University, who discussed his recently published, Lincoln's Campaign Biographies. And we finished the month with a visit to the home of George and Nanette Herrick in Newport, where we roamed their shelves and viewed their collections of commonplace books and other items of bibliographical interest. In the autumn we'll be taking field trips to locations around the state and hosting a number of lectures in Providence.

As we look forward to the 2014-2015 season the Bartlett Society is in the process of putting together a varied program to interest the avid bibliophile. Talks, workshops and field trips are all in the planning stages for the coming year.