Treasured troves at UI: C.R. publisher accumulated Hunt collection, donated to university

Books wind up in unlikely places.

Consider, for example, the books and manuscripts of James Henry Leigh Hunt, which are housed in the University of Iowa Libraries' Special Collections.

Hunt's name is not as familiar as those of his good friends John Keats and Percy Shelley, but Hunt, too, was among the most important writers of the English Romantic movement.

'Abou Ben Adhem” may not ring a bell like 'Ode on a Grecian Urn” or 'Ozymandias,” yet Keats owed Leigh Hunt his introduction to Shelley, while Hunt himself - an impecunious writer if ever there was one - owed much of his income to Shelley's personal loans.

He was a difficult friend by many accounts. Dickens, though also a friend, went so far as to base an unsavory character in Bleak House on Hunt.

The UI Libraries recently acquired Charles Dickens' personal copy of Leigh Hunt's Autobiography.

Not long before that, the UI Libraries purchased a copy of Hunt's 'The Feast of the Poets,” which he had personally inscribed to Percy Shelley. (Both of these purchases were made possible by the generosity of private donors.) The Hunt collection at the UI even includes a lock of Keats' hair.

How did this rare trove come to reside in Eastern Iowa, thousands of miles from its British birthplace? It began with Luther Brewer (1858-1933), a Pennsylvania native who made Cedar Rapids his home. Brewer worked for the Cedar Rapids Republican before establishing his own Torch Press in 1907, and two years later opened the Torch Press Book Shop, which focused on used and rare books. He helped to establish the first public library in Cedar Rapids and counted President Taft among his personal friends.

Brewer assembled an unparalleled collection of Leigh Hunt material during the last 20-odd years of his life.

Why Leigh Hunt? Hunt material was more affordable than some of his more famous peers, to be sure, but Brewer identified with Hunt on a more personal level. 'I am a perfect glutton of books,” Brewer's bookplate reads, quoting Leigh Hunt. They both loved books and they both shared a sentimentality captured by Hunt's 'philosophy of cheer.” Both rallied around the fireplace as the locus of simple and innocent pleasure.

The UI Libraries acquired Brewer's collection in 1934 and continues to add to it. Decades of thoughtful curation have resulted in a collection of immeasurable scholarly value. At the same time, the collection offers much more than primary source material for researchers. This collection is a testament to the simple pleasure that comes from sharing books with fellow book lovers.

'Shall we arrange,” Brewer asked his friends in 1920, 'as in the years agone, for a renewal of those pleasant gatherings around the fireplace and beneath the reading lamp?” Why shouldn't we? Leigh Hunt's original stone fireplace surround just happens to be in the collection.

'Patrick Olson is special collections librarian at the Special Collections & University Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries.