The Michael Sadleir Collection of 19th Century Fiction

From England to America: How the Sadleir Collection Came to UCLA

In 1951, the UCLA University Librarian, Lawrence Clark Powell, finessed the acquisition of the Sadleir Collection of 19^th Century Fiction.

In need of money for his business ventures after World War II, Michael Sadleir sought a buyer in the U.S. for his collection. The University of Indiana was interested in obtaining it. But the University of California was quicker to put the money together, with the advocacy of the Chair of the English Department, Bradford Booth. The Collection is now located in the Bradford Booth Room designed to highlight and preserve the collection and display special treasures.

Brad Booth was the founding editor in 1945 of The Trollopian, later to be called Nineteenth Century Fiction, a Trollope scholar and bibliographer as well as Vice-President of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and faculty athletic representative for UCLA. Between April 1947 and January 1948, UCLA suddenly developed a noteworthy collection of minor Victorian novelists when the library purchased 769 titles in 1,925 volumes based upon Booth’s recommendations during a trip to England. While on this trip to England Booth also saw the Sadleir Collection and recommended its purchase to Powell.

William Clark Powell, University Librarian, 1944-1961 (UCLA Archives)

Bradford Booth, 1909-1968 (UCLA Archives)

The initial collection of Victorian novels acquired in 1948 was acknowledged in an unexpected quarter. A UC Berkeley Librarian requested a copy of the relevant catalog entries in order to prevent expensive duplication up north. Mr. Coney wrote to Dr. Powell requesting a list of the authors and titles acquired for a member of the Berkeley English Department. He also suggested sending copies of the relevant catalog cards for Berkeley to include in their Union Catalog (an early Interlibrary Loan tool). Robert Vosper, Powell’s Deputy, sent a copy of the letter to Booth with his compliments, and commenting on the rivalry between Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Letter from Mr. Coney to Powell, November 26, 1948 (UCLA Archives)

Note from Vosper to Booth enclosing the Coney letter , December 20, 1948 (UCLA Archives)

Powell himself then went to England to look at the collection and meet Sadleir. During the extended struggle to persuade the Regents of the University of California to purchase this valuable collection, Powell revealed his strategy in a letter to his Deputy, Robert Vosper, in a letter written from abroad:

Dear Bob,

While nervously awaiting your cabled reply, I'll try to compose a report on our dinner last night with Michael Sadleir. Unassuming, witty, urbane, and of course, bookish! Massey made the 4th - and we had a thorough talk. Nothing new, however, since Sadleir's letter to Brad, indicating he would "break the price," as they say here. So they are waiting for us to make an offer. I did not tell them that I think $50,000 a very top figure. What do you think?

The collection has been offered to the BM in accordance with the law; BM wants it, of course, but lacks funds. I shall try to worm out of Francis, keeper of P. Books, what figure is given. S. and M. fear to put the collection up at auction (in lots) because it would glut the trade.

The catalog will be bound by December. 500 for Frege, 500 over here, at $36. One identical edition for both countries. A 4 p. prospectus is nearly ready and I have asked S. for a dozen. I have also asked him to have Randall send the proof copy back to you.

If Warren is re-elected, and with the finished catalog on hand, an offer to S. agreed upon, we could then go to work and seek to raise a part of the money, then pass it to RGS as a multi-campus deal. I would not bring Coney or Davidson in on it until toward the end.

Now let's form a committee with Brad, Rolfe, and Ewing (do they speak to each other?) and set up a list of prospects. I believe I could touch both Edgar Goodspeed and Mrs. Doheny by long distance if I had a concise statement on the lines of the letter we wrote Dyke. ...

... Please go into a huddle with the English dept. boys and give me your reaction this procedure. Will Glen Dawson be of any help in this plan to export so many book dollars? Will Robinson? Pinky?

I suggest the novels be played down and the idea be played up of a documentary collection on the 19th century English publishing and we must play up the prestige idea for all it's worth: that the collection will make UCLA one of the great USA centers for research in this field.

I think you'd better get library [unk] approval before you go any further. Will Swedenberg bless it?

- -

How good the sun feels on my back! The days have been [unk] clear, then gradually the rain clouds sweep in from the west - but the weather remains mild. Yesterday we went to the zoo. What a wonderful collection of birds! And of people!

How are you? How does your son thrive?

If that cable doesn't come this morning, I'm going to No. 10 Downing St. and complain.

Yours ever,

Larry

Powell’s letter reminds us that novels still carried a certain taint of frivolity even in the 20^th century.

Powell letter to Vosper, October 5, 1950 (UCLA Archives)

Powell letter to Vosper, October 5, 1950 verso (UCLA Archives)

Robert Vosper, 1913-1994 (UCLA Archives)

Powell’s difficulty lay in convincing the UC Board of Regents to allocate the $65,000 required to purchase the collection. And exchange of letters between 1950 and 1951 with David Randall of Scribner’s in New York, which was selling the collection for Sadleir, indicates that Powell was having difficulty finding sources for the money.

Meanwhile, a Thackeray scholar at the English Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gordon Ray, first visited Michael Sadleir’s library a year after Booth, on a trip to England in 1948. Booth himself called Gordon Ray “a perfect bird-dog for a three-decker,” and indeed, Ray set to work trying to convince his own university to make the purchase. However, Powell succeeded first and Ray graciously sent a telegram to Powell, who needed supporting documentation before the Regents of the University of California gave their final approval.

In the end, the UC Regents allocated $65,000 for the collection.

"...and as it happened, I also played a small and reluctant part in helping bring Sadleir's books to UCLA."

Gordon N. Ray, 1915-1986 (UCLA Archives)

Telegram from Powell to Dr. Robert Sproul, President of the University of California, acknowledging receipt of the funds for purchasing the collection. December 19, 1951. (UCLA Archives)

Sadleir makes it clear that he preferred UCLA to other institutions vying for the collection in his telegram of congratulations to Powell. Sadleir’s long association with Brad Booth, as a consulting editor for Nineteenth Century Fiction, possibly gave UCLA the favored position. (UCLA Archives)

Letter of congratulations from Frederick Adams of the Pierpont Morgan Library. He refers to Princeton’s illustrious Parrish Collection, the other significant Victorian literature collection in the United States at that time. (UCLA Archives)

After the purchase was settled, David Randall writes to Powell about the dreaded California State Tax, 3% at the time. (UCLA Archives)

Brad Booth and Majl Ewing of the English Department, with Wilbur Smith, Head of Special Collections, examining some of the novels in the Sadleir Collection. (UCLA Archives)

Forty-three cases of books arrived on April 4, 1952. It took over a year to unpack and check them against Sadleir’s bibliography: XIX Century Fiction: A Bibliographical Record Based on His Own Collection.

A separate room was built in the University Research Library Special Collections area to house the Sadlier Collection and named in honor of Booth, the Bradford A. Booth Memorial Room. This description comes from Bradford Booth and the Sadleir Collection: Three Dedicatory Essays:

The room is designed in the nature of a Victorian private library…The Victorian breakfront holds Bradford Booth’s collection of Royal Doulton figurines of characters from Dickens’ novels (the figurines were the gift of Mrs. Booth; the furnishings the gift of Booth’s friends) and Anthony Trollope’s library steps that convert into a chair (from Brad Booth’s own collection). A dozen framed “Spy” cartoons from Vanity Fair have been placed on the walls.

The Sadleir volumes themselves, of course, continue to be the chief glory of the room. The more than 2,500 titles amount to about 10,000 individual volumes. These are cataloged and described in Michael Sadleir’s XIX Century Fiction. Sadleir’s insistence on mint condition in the volumes he acquired lends a bibliophilic radiance to the enormous scholarly and bibliographical importance of the collection…The Booth memorial Fund therefore seeks to add to the Sadleir Collection by acquiring titles not in Sadleir but nevertheless from the period and appropriate to a collection of this type. It also seeks to expand the research utility of the Sadleir Collection by acquiring research and reference aids for the Booth Room.

The Sadleir Collection within the Bradford A. Booth Memorial Room with Vanity Fair cartoons

The Sadleir Collection Yellow Backs in the Booth Memorial Room

The Victorian Breakfront containing Booth’s Royal Doulton figurines of Dickens’s characters

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