Rare books worth checking out at Pequot Library

An antiphonary, a liturgical book containing psalms, hymns and prayers, dated to the 15h century, is in the special collection at the Pequot Library in the Southport section of Fairfield. An antiphonary, a liturgical book containing psalms, hymns and prayers, dated to the 15h century, is in the special collection at the Pequot Library in the Southport section of Fairfield. Photo: Kyle Michael King / For Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Kyle Michael King / For Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 21 Caption Close Rare books worth checking out at Pequot Library 1 / 21 Back to Gallery

The gloves are coming off at the Pequot Library in the Southport section of Fairfield.

No, there are no fisticuffs breaking out among the cordial, hardworking librarians who help make Pequot the community treasure it is. But they are no longer donning white linen gloves when handling the library’s extensive rare book and early Americana collection. Conventional wisdom now has the gloved hand being less nimble and flexible than a bare one, making it more likely to tear or otherwise damage a valuable rare book or document.

“All we require now is a well-scrubbed pair of hands,” says Elizabeth Beaudin, consultant for special collections at the library. With that said, Beaudin opens a beautiful goatskin-covered tome with gold leaf and distinguished by small linen strings knotted to the outside edges of certain pages, an early form of bookmark.

“This is an Antiphonal, which is a liturgical book used by chorus members. The string markers helped choir members turn to frequently used pages of prayers and chants,” she says. “This is a particularly beautiful volume because it is illuminated (an early term for illustration) and has a design tooled into the leather cover.”

It is unusual for a small, circulating library such as the Pequot to have an extensive collection of rare books and early Americana. But the Pequot has had collecting at the heart of its mission since 1889, the year it was founded by Elbert and Virginia Monroe.

Using a fortune inherited from her father, Virginia and her husband set out to realize their shared dream of building a free public library in Southport. They sought counsel from the Rev. William Holman, a Harvard-educated bibliophile, who helped them develop a strong circulating and reference library for adults and children. The first books entered into the library’s catalog were 15 volumes of stories by Charles Dickens.

But Holman also committed the couple to move the Pequot beyond the usual lending-library fare by starting a special collection of rare books and early Americana. “This came at a time when our culture was still very Euro-centric,” Beaudin says. “So this idea of creating a collection to tell and preserve the story of the founding of the United States was really quite bold and innovative.”

The special collection contains some 30,000 items, including one of the first copies of the New Hampshire Constitution, many sermons preached by early New England clergy, maps, atlases and other primary source documents, and signatures of every signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The Pequot collection has the eight volumes of the second edition of John James Audubon’s “Birds of America,” and several handwritten chapters of “Gone with the Wind.” Plus, there is a letter from Christopher Columbus to the Spanish royals King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella about his discovery of America. Printed in Rome in 1493, the letter to Columbus’ sponsors includes the words, “I have landed.” To which, I can only guess, either the king or queen responded, “Where?”

Perhaps inspired by the generosity and community spirit of the Monroes, other Southport residents have added important items to the collection and have expanded its scope over the years. Margaret Rudkin, founder of Pepperidge Farms, which for many years was headquartered in Westport, gave the library her collection of antique cookbooks. One was published in 1495, making it a fine example of early printing with movable type.

Dean Edmonds, a lawyer and Pequot board member who died in the 1970s, bequeathed rare Shakespeare folios and other material related to the Bard’s work. According to Beaudin, many of Shakespeare’s plays were not in written form at the time of his death. If not for the printing of the folios, which were the first written compilations of his work, such plays as “As You Like It” and “The Tempest” would not be familiar to us today. Two actors who were Shakespeare’s contemporaries published the first folio seven years after the playwright’s death, Beaudin says. The Pequot has “King Lear” and “Othello” from the first folio, and complete second, third and fourth folios, all printed in the 1600s.

The Pequot’s building should be counted as part of its special collection. Built with large granite blocks with a natural pink hue, and designed by architect Robert Robertson, it is a fine example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture from the late 19th century. But as cherished as it is by the Southport community and its many admirers around the country, the building is not an ideal space to safeguard and preserve its rare book and American collection. For that, the Pequot created a working partnership with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. It is one of the finest buildings dedicated to rare books in the world and has state-of-the-art security and storage facilities.

The Pequot organizes small tours of its collection at the Beinecke in New Haven, and creates exhibits in its home building so the varied and interesting collection remains accessible to library patrons.

An exhibit scheduled for next February with the working title, “Living in the New World,” will feature the Bible’s New Testament written in the Mohawk language and published in 1835, a catechism from 1819, an Indian biography from 1832 and three small treatises by John Eliot on the progress of spreading the gospel among the Indians of New England, according to Beaudin.

Almost 130 years after its founding, the Pequot Library remains true to its founders’ original vision of being a library “Free as air for all.” Just leave the white gloves at home.

Bob Horton is a columnist for the Greenwich Time and a regular contributor to Sunday Arts & Style.