At the beginning of term, a student, Catherine Costello, presented us with a copy of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of pure reason, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn and published in London in 1887. Although we are always happy to consider donations when they are offered, we are not always in a position to take them. However, the connection with Trinity meant that there was no hesitation over accepting this one.
The half-title bears the manuscript name and address of T. Dunbar Ingram, 34 Trinity College, Dublin, and the date, February 1891. The owner has made prolific notes in the book, including a “family tree” for logic, and there is much blue, and some red, underlining. However, many of the pages in the second half of the book remain uncut so he obviously never finished reading it.
We already hold a book with Thomas’s signature on the title page: a 1697 edition of Virgil’s Opera, which also bears the signatures of several other members of the Ingram family and copious manuscript notes in more than one hand, some in English and some in Greek (the book is printed in Latin). Unfortunately, it is in extremely poor condition but the catalogue record can be seen here.
Thomas Dunbar Ingram, named after his uncle, a well-known lawyer and historian, won a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin in 1890, graduated BA in 1893, and died in South Africa in 1895. He was the youngest son of John Kells Ingram, whose career in College encompassed the positions of Professor of Oratory (1852-1866) and of English Literature (1855-1866), Regius Professor of Greek (1866-1879), Librarian (1879-1886), Senior Lecturer (1886-1893), Registrar (1893-1896) and Vice Provost (1898-1899). In 1956, Captain J. K. Ingram, the last surviving descendant, donated £10,000 to the Library to purchase books or papers in memory of John Kells Ingram, and the Townley Hall collection also came from this family through the marriage of T. D. Ingram’s sister.
Catherine told me how her family came to have this book in their possession: at some time in the 1970s, her father’s employer purchased two houses on Gardiner Street, north Dublin. The contents were destined for a skip but her father, Patrick (Paddy) Dore, rescued some fifty books. Catherine says ‘My mother, Joan Dore, is delighted to donate the book and it is to her credit that the books survived for the last forty years’. The recovered books also include a set of Shakespeare which Catherine intends to have rebound for use in her own studies.
This copy of Critique of pure reason has been catalogued to shelfmark OLS B-15-858 no.1 (no.2 is a publisher’s catalogue bound after the text) and can be requested on a call slip for consultation in the EPB reading room.