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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The Ransom Center's collection of Roman Catholic Recusant Literature (1558–1829) consists of close to 4,500 books and pamphlets printed in England during periods when Catholicism was proscribed. The collection includes volumes of church history, devotional works, and Bibles.
Rich Oram, Librarian of the Humanities Research Center, and John B. Thomas, Head of Rare Book Cataloguing at the HRC, both helped immensely with the preparation of this article. I would also like to thank Father Thomas H. Clancy for his cooperation and assistance.
1 A Guide to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. (Austin, TX: University of Texas, cl900), p. 86.Google Scholar
2 Although there is still a portion of the collection as yet uncatalogued, there is a large discrepancy between this figure and the estimates given by the bookseller's advertisements. I have been unable to account for such a discrepancy but believe that the majority of outstanding materials have been catalogued and that the remaining works follow the general characteristics of the catalogued portion.
3 Allison, A.F. and Rogers, D. M.. A Catalogue of Catholic Books in English Printed Abroad or Secretly in England 1558–1640. (Bognor Regis UK: Arundel Press, 1956).Google Scholar In the preface, the editors define ‘Catholic works’ as works on any subject written by a Catholic but stress that most of these works were indeed of a religious character. Their later work, The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter-Reformation Between 1158–1640: An Annotated Catalogue (Brookfield, Vermont: Scolar Press, 1989–)Google Scholar includes a much broader range of materials, including foreign and Latin language materials.
4 Clancy, Thomas H. English Catholic Works 1641–1700: A Bibliography. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1974), p. vii.Google Scholar
5 Letter received from Thomas H. Clancy, November 5, 1996. Fr. Clancy recognized several volumes from Molloy's library at the University of Texas at Austin. The compiler was identified in the advertising literature only as ‘a scholar of international repute.’
6 B. Weinreb Ltd., Advertising letter (photocopy), undated, Recusant Collection file, HRC.
7 Apparently, the first segment of the collection was obtained from Bertram Rota, while Ben Weinreb Ltd. handled the second lot of items.
8 [James Molloy], Letter to Ben [Weinreb] (photocopy), received January 27, 1970, Recusant Collection file, HRC.
9 Clancy, op. cit; p. iv.
10 Advertising description of first portion of the collection (photocopy), [1968], Recusant Collection file, HRC. Although STC lists other American copies at St. Louis University and the Newberry Library, the HRC copy is the only one currently catalogued in either the OCLC or RLIN databases.
11 One interesting book, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the Use of the Association Erected under that Title in the Domestic Oratory of the Society of Jesus at Bruges …, has one hundred and ten pages of handwritten prayers in French and English bound in with the printed text to form a single volume. This book belonged to the nuns of the Royal Irish Abbey in lepers, Belgium. Another, A Manual of Devout Prayers and other Christian Devotions …, 1778, includes genealogical informa-tion written by Mary Fordyce and several bookplates, demonstrating its passage through many hands.
12 Several of these titles, such as Catholic Pulpit, were very short-lived. Also, many periodical titles remain uncatalogued.
13 In the case of an eighteenth century manuscript of Documenta et regulae ad actionum quotidiarum rectam compositinem ex varii auctorbis, formerly owned by the Royal Irish Abbey at lepers, Belgium, Molloy noted an inscription and identified its writer as a French Jesuit, Ignatius Stamford, who was chaplain at the convent.