by Conni Manoli-Skocay, archives assistant, Concord Free Public Library Special Collections, and archivist/historian, Carlisle Historical Society.

From 1840 to 1852 the brilliant and energetic Elizabeth Palmer Peabody ran a bookstore and circulating Foreign Library at 13 West Street in Boston. Far more than a business, it served as a salon for Boston's nineteenth-century Transcendentalist community. Among those who found their way there were Dr. William Ellery Channing, "the father of American Unitarianism," reformer and abolitionist Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fuller, who held a number of her famous conversations there. For George and Sophia Ripley and their Brook Farm associates, it served as an incubator in which to formulate their utopian vision. Editors of and contributors to The Dial, a periodical for the dissemination of Transcendentalist thought met there, and Peabody herself served as publisher in 1842 and 1843.

The New England Transcendentalists were influenced by a variety of foreign authors, including Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Swedenborg. They found inspiration in the writings of Plato and the English Neo-Platonic writers, as well as Confucius and the sacred texts of the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavadgita, but the availability of such works was limited. In response, Peabody assembled a collection that specifically addressed their needs, while at the same time reflecting her deepest interests and concerns.

No Worthless Books, an exhibit focusing on Elizabeth Peabody's Foreign Library, opens at the Concord Free Public Library on October 3 and runs through November 30, 2005. It explores all aspects of the Foreign Library: its organization and patrons, authors and texts, and the significance of the Foreign Library to Boston's leading intellectuals and its influence on Transcendental thought.

The inspiration for the exhibit, organized by Leslie Wilson, curator of Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library, was the discovery and subsequent recovery of Foreign Library volumes in the Library's circulating collection during the early 1980s. They had been presented to the Concord Free Public Library by Elizabeth Peabody, primarily in 1878. A selection of works from the collection of the Foreign Library is supported by the exceptional extant documentation, including information on its establishment, operation, clientele, Peabody's own letters and journals, the reminiscences of family, friends, and associates, and related materials.

The exhibit highlights the breadth and depth of the texts contained in the Foreign Library and is testimony to Elizabeth Peabody's contention that her collection contain no worthless books.

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"No Worthless Books": Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's Foreign Library, 13 West Street, Boston, 1840-1852 runs from October 3 to November 30, 2005 in the Gallery at the Concord Free Public Library. The exhibit, curated by Leslie Wilson, Concord Free Public Library Special Collections Curator, is open during regular library hours.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Professor Lawrence Buell of Harvard University will speak on Transcendentalism as a Medium for the Wisdom of the World at the Concord Free Public Library on October 30, 2005. The lecture is at 5:00 and will be preceded by refreshments in the Trustee's Room at 4:00. Those who attend the lecture may also view the exhibit. All are welcome.

     

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