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Asutosh Collection In 1949, his children donated this entire collection to the National Library. The collection has books on almost all the subjects, but the major portion of the collection consists of books on law, European literature, history and pure sciences. There are about 170 titles of different periodicals excluding the law reports. Though the larger number of books is in English, the collection has also books in Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and many other languages. |
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 Notitia
Vtraqve……..(1553) is the oldest printed book in this
collection. It is in Latin language. The speciality of this collection
lies in the multi-editions of the single title. There are about
30 editions of Rubaiyat, 30 editions of Arabian Nights, 25 editions
of Bible, 4 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica.Another salient
feature of this collection is of the limited editions. During
last decades of 19th century and early decades of the 20th century,
many publishers were publishing limited editions. |
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Some titles of these limited editions are : Robert Browning's Flight of Duchess, only 125 copies, and all are on Vellum (unborn calf leather), were printed. Henry M. Stanley's In Darkest Africa, (1890), only 250 copies of this work were printed and the copy available in this collection is numbered 240 and bears the author's autograph. S.T. Coleridge's The rime of the ancient mariner (1903), only 150 copies of this work were printed and all are on Vellum. Another notable limited edition is Arthur Upson's Lyrics and Sonnets (1909), only 25 copies of this work were printed on Japanese Vellum. Apart from the books and periodicals, the collection has also many rare original paintings, photographs and manuscripts. The library has published catalogues ( five volumes) of Asutosh Collection. |
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