Carolyn Wells Celebrated in Library of Congress Program on Women Book Collectors
The bookplates of both Carolyn Wells (under) and the Library of Congress (over) in a first edition of Walt Whitman’s Memoranda of the War that Carolyn bequeathed to the library upon her death in 1942.
Rebecca Rego Barry, the former longtime editor of Fine Books & Collections, now director of communications at The Raab Collection, will discuss her latest book at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC on March 13.
Women Collectors and Authors: The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells will be held in the LC’s Jefferson Building, room 119, from 5.30pm to 7.pm. Tickets are free, but registration is required (details here).
The event is part of the library’s Women’s History Month programming and centers on Barry’s research at the Library of Congress for her recently published biography The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author (2024). The program will consist of a brief illustrated presentation, a Q&A with LC rare book and special collections reference librarian Amanda Zimmerman, and a display of books from Wells’ collection of rare Walt Whitman editions.
In addition to being a famous writer of poems, prose, and mystery novels, Wells was a major book collector in the early decades of the 20th century. Although she collected broadly in American and English literature, she focused on Whitman, and she co-authored with bookseller Alfred Goldsmith, A Concise Bibliography of the Works of Walt Whitman (1922), which served as the standard reference for generations.
