Acquisitions

A rare medieval bible has been acquired by the University of South Carolina (USC). The book is English and was made in Oxford around 1240, and is in pristine condition. It was purchased at auction in London with support from New York’s B. H. Breslauer Foundation. Most complete medieval Bibles in the United States, fewer than 100 in number, are from France or Italy, and USC’s Bible likely remained in its country of origin from its creation until this year. The Bible acquired by USC is the only English pocket Bible in the Southeast.

A collection of Jan Morris has been gifted to the University Libraries at George Mason University. It comprises a comprehensive collection of nearly all of her travel narratives in not only the first editions, but also most of the subsequent editions, including galleys, proof versions, and editions with composition errors. The Jan Morris Collection consists of 136 titles and one rare poster (a chromolithographic enlargement of the dust jacket of Manhattan ’45, a promotional piece, signed by Morris). The collection includes Morris’s Coronation Everest, signed by Sir Edmund Hillary. Born James Morris in 1926 in Somerset, England, Morris began medically transitioning from male-to-female in 1964, and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1972. She published under her former name, James Morris, until the 1970s. She is widely acclaimed for her travel writing, which includes famous profiles of Oxford, Venice, Wales, Hong Kong, and New York City, among other places. Morris’ most recent book, Contact! A Book of Encounters, was published in 2010. A Welsh nationalist, and also an essayist and historian of note, her most famous nontravel work is the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire.