A Brill Calendar: August 19

Few courtiers serving Her Majesty Typographia have distinguished themselves as James Lenox (August 19 1800 – February 17 1880; both New York City).

Born with a mercantile silver spoon firmly in his mouth – young James, the son of a Scottish merchant, inherited from his parents millions of dollars as well as desirable real-estate in the heart of the City, not just acreage in the State of the same name. The boy graduated from Columbia University at the age of 18 and became a member of the Bar; only to discover the love of his life: discovering and collecting rare books, manuscripts and associated objects. John Lennox had a deep love for texts and printed matter,especially those of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Next to all editions of William Shakespeare, John Milton and John Bunyan, early Americana and accounts of discovery across the Atlantic, Bible editions could also count on his warm interest and on the power of his privy purse. The philanthropist and connoisseur intended from the beginnings to serve in his special way the scholarly study of these acquisitions.

In the history of book-collecting it is seldom that an aficionado of Lennox’s standing, having reached the biblical age of the very strong, made the decision to make his priceless collection, amassed with circumspection – almost a ‘contradictio in terminis’ – available to the general public.

Fifteen years after his death - in another love of his life, New York City - the Lenox Library, containing some hundred thousand volumes, was assembled with the Astor and the Tilden Libraries in order to create the New York Public Library.