Collection Development Manual > Libraries & Collections > Special Collections > Rose Collection
Rose Collection
Collection Policy
Thomas Newton Cook and Jesse A. Currey Rose Collection
The main body of the collection included 187 titles from the bequest of materials owned by Cook. He acquired these from the Castle Craig Rose Library in Great Britain; these had been collected by a Scottish Earl, Lord Carmichael, the Master of Castle Craig on the Black Isle in Cromarty Firth, Scotland. The books, in languages including French, Italian, and Spanish, deal with the culture of roses from ancient times to the present day. They include bibliographies, catalogs, texts on rose cultivation and identification, and American Rose Society Annuals.
Materials in the Cook and Currey Rose Collection, considered one of the important historical rose collections in the United States, are included in the major rose bibliography (K. L. Stock, Rose Books: a bibliography.1550-1975, 1984; the John Wilson Room's holdings are listed under the "Library Association of Portland"). The highlight is the first edition, three-volume set of Les Roses (Paris: 1817-1824) by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, the renowned painter of roses in the court of Empress Josephine Bonaparte. The Collection is also distinguished by the unique bindings designed by Cook. Many of his holdings were bound in ¾ rose-colored morocco, marbled end-papers, with tooled ornaments of roses on their spines.
The John Wilson Room, Special Collections, has materials published up until 1975 (the end-date of Stock's bibliography). Nothing is included in the collection published after 1975 unless the works are extraordinarily significant to the study of roses or unless they are a continuation of a serial that began at an earlier date that was already in the Collection. Materials in Stock that are not currently in the Cook and Currey Collection may be added when available as gifts or with gift monies.
June 28, 2004