Anarchy – Books, Pamphlets and Flaming Posters of the Most Violent Character

 Anarchist libraries sometimes arise from a personal collection of books and papers, and sometimes such collections end up within an institution. In June 1903 reports appeared of the purchase of the ‘Finest library on Anarchy – Books, Pamphlets and Flaming Posters of the Most Violent Character Secured by Columbia.'

‘The Columbia library on Morningside Heights has just come into the possession of a complete anarchistic library of some 2,000 books, pamphlets and documents, and in a few weeks they will be ready for reference. It is stated by Dr. James P. Canfield, the head librarian, that it is the most complete collection of its kind in the world. It originally belonged to a French anarchist. On his death in London last year the collection passed into the hands of administrators, and they had the books put up at auction. Columbia bought them for $100.’ [1]

Other reports gave much fuller details of what was in this collection: ‘Some time ago, says the New York Post, it came to the attention of Dr. Vladimir G. Sienkhovitch [Simkhovitch], the university bibliophile, that a French anarchist long resident at London, and of considerable literary ability, had died in the course of the winter, and that his library had passed to administrators who were plainly ignorant of the character of the calling of the man. Dr. Sienkhovitch, however, knew that the dead man had spent the greater part of his life in making an exhaustive collection of all the valuable anarchistic literature extant; he noticed that this collection, which consisted not only of books and pamphlets, but also of posters, periodicals, journals and broadsides, was turned over by the administrators to the Sothebys, the London book auctioneers, and soon found hidden away in their spring catalogue an item advertising the sale of the entire collection. […]

‘The entire collection, in twenty-four large boxes, arrived at New York in the spring. The work of examination, classification, appraisal, cataloguing and binding has been going on now for several weeks, but has not yet been completed. Neither the scientific nor the pecuniary value of the consignment can as yet be ascertained, but as an indication of the worth of the collection it may be stated that much of this material appears in no existing bibliography, being hitherto unknown