ELLEN TERRY’S LIBRARY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 91, 17 April 1929, Page 3

ELLEN TERRY’S LIBRARY

Not many actresses, I imagine, are likely to die possessed of a library of the size and catholicity of the late Ellen Terry’s, says an English writer. Although she did not collect first editions or try to find valuable books for the sake of the financial gain they might bring, she had a great many of both varieties. The largo majority of the first editions of modern writers ■were sent to her —oft.en with the most charming messages inscribed on the title page —by those who wrote them, and she had quite a large collection of slim volumes of poetry and books published “across the water” sent to her by friends in America. Complete editions of works were given to her from time to time by Henry Irving, x .hese often dealing with the stage or with Shakespeare, and she herself made a collection of books concerned with the drama, which are invaluable now. The latter are being kept to form the nucleus of a theatrical library at her homo in Kent, which it is hoped will become a public memorial to her. The others are to be sold in London.