Spooky Collections in UC’s Blegen Library a Tempting Haunt for Halloween

The University Libraries Rare Books Collection holds goblins, ghosts and witches pictured in tomes that made up UC’s very first library. Around the dark, closed stacks, there are even stories about a ghost in the rare books section!

Date: 10/23/2006 12:00:00 AM
By: Dawn Fuller
Phone: (513) 556-1823

Photos By: Courtesy of Archives & Rare Books

The spirits of Halloween are reflected in the collection that was the foundation of the libraries at the University of Cincinnati. Rare, old books – some dating back as far as the 1700s and depicting witches and wizards – also feature a bookplate identifying them as part of the Robert Clarke collection.

Kevin Grace, head of the Archives & Rare Books Library and University Archivist, describes Robert Clarke as a Scottish-American bookseller, publisher and bibliophile in Cincinnati in the 19th century. “He was a very well-known bookman and collected titles in the area of American history, theology and philosophy, and early travel and exploration.”

In 1898, William A. Procter, a member of the UC Board of Directors and heir to the Procter & Gamble family fortune, became UC’s most generous contributor to the library collection, when he donated nearly 7,000 volumes of Clarke’s collection to the university in anticipation of the 1901 opening of UC’s first library building, the Van Wormer Library. Grace says Procter also donated important collections of Shakespeare and chemistry.

Among the rare books in the Clarke collection is A System of Magick; or, A History of the Black Art, by author Daniel Defoe, the English journalist made famous for writing Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1727, A System of Magick; or, A History of the Black Art holds an image of a wizard conjuring up a demon.

Sir Walter Scott’s Demonology and Witchcraft, published in 1868, is another title in the rare holdings in theology, and features a woodcut of a witch originally created in the 15th century. Another image depicts a coven of witches pacing around a country church in England.

A more recent spooky work housed in rare books features bookman Barry Moser’s rendering of Frankenstein’s monster, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (West Hatfield, Mass.: Pennyroyal Press, 1984).

Frankenstein's monster

Considered one of the most outstanding illustrators and book designers of our time, the Rare Books Collection holds a wide range of Moser’s works. He is the only person to single-handedly design and illustrate the Bible in the 20th century. The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, featuring those illustrations, was acquired by the Archives & Rare Books Library in 2004.

It was during the early 1970s, when Grace was a grad student at UC that he first heard stories about a ghost that took up residence in the Rare Books stacks in Blegen Library. The ghost, according to legend, is a former classics professor who died in the 1960s. He’s a rather dapper ghost at that – and reportedly wears a tweed suit jacket and sometimes an old tweed cap. The old ghost story is one of UC’s famous urban legends.

Located on the eighth floor of Blegen Library, the Archives & Rare Books Library is open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The ghost is generally unavailable.