Lecture at the Grolier Club: A Secret Gilded Age Library Rooted in 17th Century New York
March 11th, 2025
The Grolier Club, America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiast in the graphic arts, invited the Holland Society to present a lecture on the history of the Holland Society’s Grotius Collection on March 11th, 2025.
Holland Society’s Executive Director, Sarah Bogart Cooney, lectured on its Grotius Collection of books, tucked away at Columbia University.
The tomes were purchased in 1890 by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, a Holland Society member and ex-Minister to the Hague, from Bom and Bom Book Dealers in Amsterdam. The collection is rich in first editions, including 17th-century publications by the eminent Elzevir dynasty of printers.
Since 1901, the books have been on deposit in Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library: a ghost collection with no presence in Columbia’s library catalogue.
Recent efforts by the Holland Society and Columbia librarians have brought new exposure to this collection, and collaboration has begun to rescue them from “the oblivion of their present situation”.
