The earliest important imprints we have acquired for the library this year are three 16th- and early 17th-century volumes, by a priest and scholar whose erudition was much admired by Pope Clement VIII. Thomas Stapleton (1535–98), one of our college’s foremost theologians, was possibly named after St Thomas More—who was martyred under Henry VIII for refusing to avow royal over spiritual supremacy; More was executed just days before Stapleton’s birth. From Winchester ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ, Stapleton proceeded to ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ, where he was elected a fellow on 18 January 1553; five years later, in 1558, he was ordained a priest under Mary I. But within a couple of years, he had been forced to flee to the Low Countries, following Elizabeth I’s accession.

And, of course—we have been acquiring some remarkable modern books and archival documents too. 

Nicola Howell Hawley, endpapers illustration to Andrew Caldecott’s Simul (2024)
²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library, Oxford, NC/CAL

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library and Archives, Oxford

In August 2022, it was our especial good fortune to be able to acquire a limp maroon leather-bound 90-page notebook that once belonged to ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ alumnus Edward ‘Ned’ Perry Warren (1860–1928), containing fourteen autograph poems, along with quotations and other notes in Warren’s hand.

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library, Oxford, MS 380, f. 18r [detail]

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library and Archives, Oxford

Edward ‘Ned’ Perry Warren (1860–1928) studied Classics at ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ, and is best remembered today for his prolific collecting of Greek and Roman antiquities. He was also an author of works exalting same-sex love, writing under the pen-name of Arthur Lyon Raile. In spring 2022, the library acquired a beautiful calligraphic manuscript in black and red inks, which dates from 1916, of an apparently unpublished poem by Warren—‘The Appeal of Eros to Apollo’.

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library, Oxford, MS 379, upper board

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library and Archives, Oxford