Eye on Acadia
Acadia’s rarest collection Acadia is home to one of the rarest collections of Canadiana, thanks to the foresight of President G. B. Cutten Capt. Eric R. Dennis By Laura Churchill Duke (’98)
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hen President Cutten received word that Major J.P. Edwards’ collection of Canadiana books, pamphlets and serials was for sale in 1917, he acted quickly, nudging out Dalhousie in the process, and bought the collection in its entirety for $10,000 (approximately $180,000 in today’s money). Acadia then began to pay for the collection by appealing to alumni for their support. In 1919, Senator William Dennis of Halifax, a former member of Acadia’s Board of Governors and honourary degree recipient (’33), came forward with a donation of $10,000 to purchase the collection in honour of his son, Captain Eric Dennis, upon the anniversary of his death at Vimy Ridge in World War I. The collection has been known ever since as the Eric R. Dennis Collection. Eric attended Acadia for two years, from 1911 to 1913, and had been awarded the Military Cross before dying at the front in 1917. The collection contains some 15,000 books, pamphlets and serials, primarily historical, political, literary and religious. It is recognized as one of the best collections
of early 19th and 20th century Canadian literature in the country, and contains some of the only known copies of various books and documents in Canada. The oldest book in the collection is Voyage to Hudson’s Bay by Henry Ellis, dated 1748. The earliest piece is dated 1618. It is by Marc Lescarbot and entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Of note also is a Centennial gift of nine rare books to the National Library in Ottawa from Great Britain, seven copies of which are in the collection. University Archivist Pat Townsend says that this collection is extremely valuable and used today by students and visiting researchers. “Undergraduate students at Acadia are extremely lucky to work with such primary sources,” she adds. “Most students would not get such a chance unless they were at a graduate level!” Those interested in seeing the Dennis Collection are invited to the Kirkconnell Room of the Vaughan Memorial Library to peruse the detailed catalogue for documents of interest. WEB: http://library.acadiau.ca/about/kirkconnell.html
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ACADIA BULLETIN Spring 2014