Special Collections

Gift of Thomas A. Cooper, PA Class of 1902

This collection of American humor material includes periodicals, books and comic books from the 19th and 20th centuries. Highlights of the collection include first editions of Mark Twain and other American authors. A large part of the original donation went into the circulating collection.

Gift of Nelson S. Taylor, PA Class of 1900

The Americana collection comprises mostly primary source material dealing with the American Revolution and American history published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Additional items in this collection include maps, manuscripts, engravings and prints.

This collection contains works of the town’s publishing industry and more importantly the Draper family, which had close ties to Abbot Academy.  Additionally, it contains many publications of the Andover Theological Seminary and its professors. Duplicate copies of some of the publications appear in the library’s circulating collection.

Gift of Thomas Cochrane, PA Class of 1890

One of the many high points in the Special Collections is a small collection of John James Audubon’s famous works. Phillips Academy holds one of the few editions of Audubon’s Birds of America in the original elephant folio edition, and the companion octavo Ornithological Biography, for which he is most well-known in addition to his works on the quadrupeds of North America.

Largely religious in orientation this collection contains primarily 19th century books. These formed the library of the Bromfield School, founded in 1878 by Margaret Bromfield Blanchard and originally located in North Andover.

Gift of Alan Rodgers Benner, PA Class of 1888, Faculty 1892 – 1938, Rev. Dr. Cecil P.P. Bancroft, PA Head of School 1873 – 1901 and, Arthur Gayton Ballard, PA Class of 1874

The Classics Collection is composed largely of volumes which were formerly in the personal collections of the donors. It contains the library’s incunabula and has material from the 15th through the 18th centuries of the classic authors such as Homer and Cicero. The early curriculum of this school was heavily weighted toward the classics, and many of these volumes were part of the circulating collection in support of that curriculum.

Gift of Samuel Farrar, PA treasurer 1803 – 1840

The Farrar collection contains English and American law books from the 17th and 18th centuries. It includes a copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries and a set of Massachusetts Laws. Many of these books may be of interest to teachers looking for primary source material on legal issues including topics such as slavery and land ownership. Also included in this collection is an account book for Samuel Farrar, which includes entries regarding the Phillips family.

The eleven books in this set represent a unique style of book decoration, which may be of interest to scholars of the book arts. In order to view the painting, the leaves of the book must be fanned, exposing the edges of the pages and thereby the painting.

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This collection represents what could be found of the Phillips Academy library as it existed in 1819. This is the date on the handwritten catalogue book that resides with the collection.  A numbering system on the inside cover helps with identification as it can be matched to the catalogue.

These books were owned by various members of the Phillips family.

Gift of Charles Forbes, PA instructor in Latin 1891 – 1933

The Forbes Virgil collection is considered a cornerstone of the Academy’s Special Collections, containing volumes dating from the 15th through the 20th centuries. A catalogue of the collection, which was published in 1931, is listed in the online catalog.  Along with the Classics Collection these volumes reflect the curriculum’s early focus on the classics

The bulk of the Special Collections material is part of the unnamed general (special) collection held by the Academy Archives.

Amongst the authors represented in this collection are Sir Richard Burton, Lord Byron, Joseph Conrad, Dickens, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Surtees, Daniel Webster, Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams. Many books within this collection are illustrated as well, some of the artists represented include William Blake, Edmund Dulac and Rockwell Kent.

Additionally the general collection contains many fine examples of rare books.  A leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, Shakespeare’s 1st and 4th folios, a miniature book, and the Jansson’s Atlas are all a part of the Special Collections.