College and Research Libraries


By FRED WALDECK 

Adolph Sutro's Lost Library 

W HEN THE FLAMES in the wake of the great San Francisco earthquake of 
1906 wiped out the major part of the 
Sutro Library with its thousands of in-
cunabula, the world of culture sustained 
a tragic and irreparable loss. The bril-
liant life of its founder, Adolph Heinrich 
Sutro, builder of the Sutro tunnel 
through the Comstock Lode, mayor of 
San Francisco, and philanthropist, is 
part of the romantic tradition of "the 
Queen of the Pacific." With his ambi-
tious project to create a vast, free library, 
a research center for scholars of the West 
Coast, the one-time immigrant made an 
outstanding contribution to the cultural 
life of his adopted country. 

In 1877 Sutro began to devote all his 
time to the acquisition of his book col-
lection and went about this task with the 
same sweeping energy that brought him 
success against all odds in the construc-
tion of the tunnel. Known as "the Cali-
fornia bookman" in London book circles, 
he personally bought more than 50,000 
volumes of his collection, while his 
agents were to be found wherever im-
portant book auctions took place in 
Europe and Mexico. The selection of his 
books "made at a favorable time and 
under fortunate and extraordinary cir-
cumstances"1 reflected his interest in 
pure and applied science and in the art 
of printing. 

The Bayrische Staatsbibliothek in Mu-
nich had absorbed the libraries of all the 
confiscated monasteries of Bavaria in the 

1 Adolph Sutro, San Francisco, California, Letter to 
the Regents of the University of California . . . on 
the selection of a site for the affiliated colleges, Sep-
tember 5, 1895 (University of California Library, 
Berkeley, California). 

Mr. Tlf!aldeck is a reference librarian, 
llistory Division, Oakland, Calif., Pub-
lic Library. 

JANUARY, 1957 

beginning of the nineteenth century, re-
sulting in much duplication of rare in-
cunabula. Sutro's agents succeeded in 
purchasing more than 3,000 incunabula, 
approximately 7 per cent of all extant 
wor:ks of the early printing presses. Sev-
eral libraries of distinction came under 
the hammer and were bought outright 
by Sutro. The first one to be sold at auc-
tion was the library of the Carthusian 
monastery at Buxheim, near Memmin-
gen, Bavaria. The treasures of this an-
cient monastery, secularised in the Na-
poleonic era, were auctioned by the heir 
of a wealthy aristocrat in satisfaction of 
a debt. Large purchases were made from 
the library of Baron Wolfgang Heribert 
von Dalberg, which was strong in his-
tory, geography, and the fine arts. Other 
important libraries bought outright were 
.the Sunderland and Blenheim collections 
belonging to the Duke of Marlborough 
and the books owned by the Duke of 
Hamilton. Other interesting acquisitions 
were the documents and pamphlets of 
Lord Macaulay which constituted his 
source material for his great history of 
England. 

Adolph Sutro mentioned also his pur-
chases of the codified laws of England 
from the library of Lord Cairns and the 
science collection of the Secretary of the 
London Chemical Society. In 1892, Pro-
fessor Burr of Cornell praised the Sutro 
Library's holdings of Renaissance and 
Reformation material and claimed that 
it had no rivals in the United States for 
its literature of the sixteenth century. 2 

At that time the Sutro Library comprised 
more than a quarter of a million vol-
umes. It was said to be one of the largest 
private libraries in America. Sutro 
worked tirelessly to enlarge it with 

2 M. J. Ferguson , "The Sutro Library ," News Not es 
of Cali fornia Libraries, VIII (1913), 445-47. 

19 



thousands of new acquiSitions . He em-
ployed a dozen "catalogers" of a sort who 
were forever hopelessly in arears and 
only able to make a fraction of the ma-
terial accessible. A regiment of binders 
did a rush job not always in accordance 
with modern binding principles . When 
the library building in Battery Street 
was filled to capacity with 200,000 books, 
including most of the incunabula, the 
overflow of the remaining 100,000 vol-
umes was stored in the historic Mont-
gomery Block. 

Sutro's untimely death in 1898 pre-
vented the realization of his plans for 
further expansion of the library and an 
adequate library building. Then fol-
lowed years of stagnation while his estate 
became entangled in litigation. The great 
holocaust in the wake of the earthquake 
of April, 1906, d es troyed the Battery 
Street building and reduced to ashes most 
of the incunabula and the greater part of 
the collection. Sutro's daughter, Dr. 
Emma Merritt, personally salvaged the 
Shakespeare folios. Miraculously, the 
Montgomery Block, containing the 100,-
000 volumes, escaped the fire. However, 
some rare books were damaged by looters 
who tore out pages to wrap up stolen 
tobacco and cigars. 

In 1913, the Sutro heirs donated this 
still impressive collection to the State of 
California. It became a branch of the 
California State Library, housed in the 
San Francisco Public Library building. 

A bibliographic search for rarities in 
the lost Sutro Library was greatly facili-
tated by the discovery of a card box 
marked: "Incunabula destroyed in the 
Fire." Richard Dillon, Sutro's versatile 
author-librarian, found this handwritten 
short-title catalog gathering dust in the 
basement. After a perusal of this list, the 
following interesting items were noted: 

A fine example of one of the earliest 
books printed with cast metal type, 
Guilelmus Durandus, Rationale divino-
rum officiorum (Mainz, Johann Fust and 
Peter Schaeffer, 1459) . The Rationale is 

one of the authoritative works on Ro-
man Catholic liturgy. 

The monumental work of Vincentius 
Bellovacensis, Speculum historiale (Augs-
burg, 1476), Vincentius Bellovacensis 
(c 1190-ca 1264), also known as Vincent 

de Beauvais, was the outstanding en-
cyclopedist of the thirteenth century. 
The library also owned his Speculum 
naturale) a vast summary of all the natu-
ral sciences known to western Europe to-
wards the middle of the thirteenth cen-
tury. This work was divided into 32 
books and 3,718 chapters. 

The varied nature of the collection 
may be further illustrated b y such works 
as the complete writings of Giovanni 
Pico della Mirandola, the great humanist 
and leading scholar of the Italian Ren-
aissance, Joannis Pici Mirandulae, Om-
nia Opera (Venice, /1498); and Jean 
Charlier de Gerson, Opera (1480). Jean 
de Gerson was the prominent chancellor 
of the University of Paris in the four-
teenth century. 

Among the scientific works may be 
mentioned the book of the fifteenth-
century mathematician and astronomer, 
.Johannes Baptista Abiosus, Dialogus in 
astrologiae defensione m (Venice, Lapi-
cida, 1494; Hain 24). 

Another notable item was the work of 
one of the most learned scholastic phi-
losophers of the thirteenth century, Al-
bertus Magnus, Liber de ;nuliere forti 
(Cologne, Heinrich Quentell, 1499; 
Hain 465). 

In the field of law there were incunab-
ula such as Justianus, Corpus juris civilis 
(Venice, 1477). This codex is the basis of 

virtually all continental European law. 
The collection contained also the fa-

mous work of the early Christian church 
father Saint Augustine, D e civitate dei 
(Basel, J. Amerbach, 1490) . 

There were many editions of the clas-
sics, including: Aristoteles, Opera (Augs-
burg, A. Keller, 1479; Hain 1658); 
Dyonysus Cato, Ethica (Augsburg, A. 
Sorg, 1475); Strabo, De situ orbis (Ven-

20 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



ice, 1494); Suetonius, Vitae duodecim 
Caesarum (Bonn, Bervaldi, 1493) . 

Over two hundred and fifty copies were 
first editions. 3 Among the incunabula 
were manY. important works from the 
earliest printing presses of various cities, 
such as Gunther Zainer, Sorg, and 
Froschauer of Augsburg; Fust and 
Schaeffer of Mainz; Zarotus of Milan; 
Koberger and Sensenschmidt of Nurem-
berg; Planck and Pannartz of Rome; 
Peter Drachen of Speyer; Eggesteyn of 
Strasbourg; and Aldus Manutius of 
Venice. 

Not more than forty incunabula were 
saved . One of them, the letters of St. 
Jerome, printed by Peter Schaeffer in 
14 70, is a noteworthy example of the 
early art of printing. One of the earliest 
items in the collection is a Gerson, 
printed by Ulrich Zell, Cologne, in 1464. 
One may also examine a well preserved 
Nuremberg Chronicle) printed in 1496, 
and a St. Thomas Aquinas, published in 
1478. 

The library still contains several not-
able Renaissance bibliographies such as 
Theodorus Janssonius ab A lmeloveen, 
De vitis Stephanorum celebrium typo-
graph.orum (Amsterdam, 1683). 

The destruction did not spare a unique 
collection of Bibles which included such 
rarities as a German Bible printed by 
Eggesteyn at Strasbourg about 1466; the 
Plantin of Antwerp Polyglot of 1569, 
printed in Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek 
and Latin; the "Vinegar" Bible; and the 
Puritan favorite, the Geneva Bible, pub-
lished in 1615. 

Twenty-nine large folios, the work of 
the classical scholars Johann Georg 
Graevius and Johann Friedrich Grono-
vius on Greek and Roman antiquities, 
burned to ashes together with 64 vol-
umes of Zedler's Grosses vollstaendiges 
Universal-Lexikon) published in 1732-50, 
one of the great encyclopedias of the 
eighteenth century. More extensive re-

3 "Notes on the Sutro Library," Overland Monthly, 
v (1885), 616-617_ 

JANUARY) 1957 

search based on the examination of the 
Sutro letters in the Bancroft Library 
may disclose additional material lost in 
the fire. 

A brief survey of some of the r~sources 
of the Sutro's present collection might 
also be an aid in identifying the holdings 
of the original library. In the pages of 
the Sutro Library Notes) edited by Rich-
ard Dillon, much important research 
material is highlighted. The following 
are particularly noteworthy: 

The sixteenth century is well repre-
sented by many Martin Luther items 
such as: Ein Brief an den Cardinal Erz-
bischof zu Mainz (Nuremberg, 1530); 
Ein Brief an die zu Frankfort am Meyn 
(Wittenberg, 1533) . There is also much 

sixteenth-century material on the Cath-
olic Church in Spain and Mexico. The 
library has a fine copy of Jan Russ, De 
anatomia Antichristi. Opuscula (1522). 
There is also a beautiful edition of Bene-
dette Bordoni, !solaria (Venice, 1547) 
with many engraved maps. The Sutro 
Library is very fortunate in possessing a 
copy of Ordenar;as y compilaci6n de leyes 
(Mexico, 1548), the work of the first 

printing press in the Americas, by 
Antonio de Mendoza, the first Viceroy of 
New Spain. The New York Public Li-
brary has the only other copy. 

With the en bloc purchase of the Sun-
derland Library, Sutro acquired a 
unique collection of seventeenth-century 
broadsides, pamphlets, and other impor-
tant material relating to the English 
Civil War and the Commonwealth pe-
riods, Cromwell and the Stuarts. This 
mine of information is still available to 
scholars visiting the library. The Cata-
logue of Mexican Pamphlets in the Sutro 
Collection (1623-1887) prepared by the 
personnel of the WP A describes the par-
ticularly strong holdings of documents 
relating to the history of Mexico and the 
Pacific Coast. 

Reflecting Adolph Sutro's scholarly in-
terests, much source material on the sci-
ences and the history of science has been 

21 



collected and made available in the Li-
brary. Among the many interesting man-
uscripts are 200,000 papers and letters of 
Sir Joseph Banks who for many years was 
president of the Royal Society and a 
companion of Captain Cook, the ex-
plorer.4 

fifteenth century, and some beautiful ex-
amples of the work of the Elzevirs. 5 In 
the field of philosophy, interest focuses 
on the eighteenth-century editions of 
·Immanuel Kant, printed in Konigsberg. 

Despite the heavy losses sustained in 
the Fire, the resources of the Sutro Li-
brary are, as this brief review indicates, 
still of considerable importance to• schol-
arship. It is, therefore, gratifying to note 
that increasing use is made of the library 
by professors, students, writers, and the 
general public. 

The art student will appreciate the 
fine Hok usai and Hiroshige Japanese 
prints. The important Hebrew section 
contains some lovely scrolls, a Yemenite 
manuscript of the Middle Ages, allegedly 
a Maimonides manuscript, books of the 

4 Richard H. Dillon, "A Peek at Sutro Library," 
Book Clt~b of California. Quarterly News Letter, XVII 
(1952), 27-32. 

5 Michael Zarchim, Glimp ses of J ewish Life in -San 
Francisco . San Francisco : 1952, pp. 31-34. 

22 

Meeting on Depository System at Midwinter 

The Committee on Public Documents will sponsor an open meeting at 
the Edgewater Beach Hotel on Tuesday, .January 29, at 10:00 A.M., to en-
courage discussion of depository libraries for U. S. government publica-
tions and the changes which should be made in the legislation under which 
they now operate. 

The Subcommittee to Study Federal Printing and Paperwork of the Com-
mittee on House Administration has just distributed to depository and 
non-depository libraries a questionnaire which inquires into the effective-
ness of the present depository system. These questions were prepared with 
the assistance of the ALA Committee on Public Documents and should 
provide much of the data needed in rewriting existing legislation. The 
questionnaire should stimulate thinking and suggest questions concerning 
documents and their distribution which can be discussed at the meeting. 

Florida Graduate Assistantships 

The University of Florida Libraries is offering three graduate assistant-
ships in the academic year 1957-58 for study leading to a master or doctoral 
degree in a subject field other than library science. Graduate assistants 
work approximately 15 hours per week in the Library, assisting in biblio-
graphical research or library administration. 

Stipend is $1,400 for a nine month period and holders of assistantships 
are exempt from out-of-state tuition fees. The deadline for filing formal 
application is March 31, 1957. 

Inquiries are invited, especially from libraries or students in library 
schools who are interested in advanced work in subject fields. Applications 
should be made to: Director of Libraries, University of Florida, Gaines-
ville, Florida. 

COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES