Thursday, August 21, 2008

More Reasons to Lament Library Loss

In recent days, some more information has come to light which makes the dismemberment of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s personal library all the more unfortunate.

In the Globe today there's a brief paragraph (last item here) on one of the few items from the collection that John Wronoski (of Lame Duck Books in Cambridge) kept and now has for sale: "It's a collection of inaugural addresses by presidents from George Washington to John F. Kennedy. The book is inscribed: 'For Arthur Schlesinger jr. - The President was going to give you this for Christmas - Please accept it now from me - With my deepest appreciation for your devotion to Jack - and all our shining memories of him.' It's signed 'Jackie' and dated 'December 1963.'"

And, as Robert Schlesinger wrote this week, the recent OSS declassifications reveal that Schlesinger was, at least nominally, a WWII spy. Pretty cool. No word on if he hung out will Julia Child while she was working on developing shark repellent.