Skip to main content
COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 2541

Ernest James Wessen correspondence with Jacob Blanck

Overview

Correspondence between bibliophiles Ernest James Wessen and Jacob Blanck, with some additional items.

Dates

  • Creation: 1944-1973

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection formerly restricted from use by Blanck; restriction removed 2007 March 23.

This collection is not housed at the Houghton Library but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.

Extent

1.5 linear feet (2 boxes)

This bulk of this collection is correspondence between bibliophiles Blanck and Wessen, documenting a thiry-year personal friendship and professional relationship. During most of this time (1950-1974), Blanck's BAL project was housed at Harvard University in the Houghton Library. The letters are chatty, frank, quite personal, and full of detailed information and comments on the antiquarian book trade, both business and people. Some of the additional letters included here were sent to Blanck by Wessen, detailing what Wessen thought were his amusing, though often controversial, interactions with buyers and other dealers. Blanck's letters address Wessen as "Oinie", while Wessen addresses Blanck as "Jake." Some of the Wessen letters were also sent to Stella Blanck. There are also some letters documenting the medical condition of the Wessens in their elder years.

Other materials included are clippings, photographs, radio scripts, and essays about Wessen, as well as issue no. 89 of Wessen's rare materials catalog, Midland Notes, a few of Blanck's typescript essays, and microopaque card samples of Midland Notes.

Biographical / Historical

Ernest "Ernie" James Wessen (1887-1974) was a bibliographer and an antiquarian book dealer, proprietor of the Midland Rare Book Co. (Mansfield, Ohio). His particular interest lay in Americana and the company's series of dealer catalogs was known as Midland Notes. He was married to Yetta Wessen and their daughter was Ruth Wessen Bunting (Mrs. John Bunting).

Jacob Nathaniel Blanck (1906-1974) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Selig and Mildred Rosenberg (Friedman) Blanck. He was married to Stella Ursula Balicer Blanck. He was the rare book editor of Publishers Weekly and Antiquarian Bookman (1936-1952), bibliographer in Americana at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (1939-1941), consultant on bibliography at the Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis (1942), and editor of the Bibliography of American Literature (BAL, 1943-1974). He also edited the third and fourth volumes of Merle Johnson's American First Editions (1936, 1942) and published four books, including two children's books. Blanck was a friend and colleague of Ernie Wessen.

Arrangement

Arranged into the following series:

  1. I. Correspondence
  2. II. Other material

Physical Location

Harvard Depository

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

70M-13. Gift of Jacob Blanck, 19 Reservoir Road, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02167; received: 1970 October 2.

74M-36. Gift of Jacob Blanck; received: 1974.

76M-50. Bequest of Jacob Blanck; received: 1977 March.

Related Materials

An additional collection of Wessen's letters are at the Archives and Special Collections of Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Published as: Ernest James Wessen. Rare book lore: selections from the letters of Ernest J. Wessen, edited by Jack Matthews. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992.

See also Houghton copies of Midland notes, 65-213F.

General note

This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. See access restrictions below for additional information.

Processing Information

Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt

Title
Wessen, Ernest James, 1887-1974. Ernest James Wessen correspondence with Jacob Blanck, 1944-1973: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou01876

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440