Erskine Caldwell Gift

THE DARTMOUTH LIBRARY'S outstanding collection of Erskine Caldwell material was made even finer—perhaps the best in the country—by the recent addition of valuable typescripts and first drafts from the author himself. Mr. Caldwell's previous gifts to Dartmouth include 114 different editions of his books.

The Caldwell collection started in March 1940 with'a group of 51 stories in their original magazine form, together with a few books, given by Margaret Bourke-White. Of Tobacco Road the Library has 21 editions, including three drama versions. Besides seven different editions in English, there are editions in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Bohemian, and French.

To the 14 typescripts already in the collection the author recently added many others, including the screen play based on Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel and TheStrong Man of Maxcatan, an unproduced musical comedy in three acts. Also given by Mr. Caldwell were the first draft (five chapters only) of Georgia Boy with many manuscript corrections in the author's hand; the first and second drafts of AHouse in the Uplands, heavily corrected; the first draft of Sure Hand of God; and 11 other typescripts of short stories, screen plays, and novels. This material has come to Baker through the "Friends of the Dartmouth Library."

A welcome addition to Dartmouth's Indian collections is the most recent gift of George Matthew Adams of New York, new chairman of the Executive Committee of the Friends, of the 1871 Halifax edition of the New Testament in the Micmac Indian language.

Mrs. H. Bartow Farr, of Mt. Kisco, N. Y„ gave the manuscript of LaSalle Corbell Pickett's book, What HappenedTo Me, together with an unpublished manuscript Esther, and inscribed copies of The Heart of a Soldier and What Happened To Me. Mrs. Pickett, the widow of the famous Confederate General, died in 1931, outliving her husband by 56 years.