Books

Over 3,300 volumes in Hill-Stead’s manuscript collection reflect the interests of Alfred and Ada Pope and their daughter Theodate. Literary classics, important first editions, and works on art and architecture, politics and social reform, travel, world history and spiritualism are represented, as are bound volumes of popular periodicals such as Godey’s Ladies Books. Most of the book collection is housed in two period rooms known as the First and Second Libraries.

The collection includes an 1863 volume of Disasters of War containing 80 engravings by Francisco de Goya; a first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in 1922 in a limited edition of 750 copies; a 1755 Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson; a 1671 book by John Ogilby titled America, Being the Latest and the Most Accurate Description of the New World; the 1907 Noteworthy Paintings in American Private Collections by the artists John LaFarge and August Jaccaci, with a chapter on Alfred Pope’s collection; and sets titled The World’s Best Literature, Dictionary of Authors, and History of English People.

Hill-Stead Books America

Photo by Deborah Key

America, Being the Latest and Most Accurate Description of the New World
John Ogilby, 1671
Engraved frontispiece; title page printed in red and black.
The oldest volume in the Alfred Atmore Pope collection.