The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1961, Síða 45

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
43
THE FISKE ICELANDIC COLLECTION
The following appeared in the Nov-
ember 13 number of The Cornell Daily
Sun, a Cornell University Students
publication.
“The Fiske Icelandic Collection, the
largest collection of its kind in North
America, continues to grow due to a
yearly $125 appropriation by the
Republic of Iceland.
Used to add books to the Collection,
the grant honors two University profes-
sors, pioneers in Icelandic studies, Wil-
lard Fiske, founder of the Collection,
and Halldor Hermannsson, its curator
for 43 years.
The close scholarly ties between the
University and Iceland were illustrated
this month by a display of rare books
from the Collection as part of the cele-
bration of the 50th anniversary of the
founding of the University of Iceland.
The 26, 500-volume Icelandic Col-
lection ranks third in size in the world,
surpassed only by the collections of
Icelandic material in the National
Library of Iceland and in the Univer-
sity of Royal Libraries of Copenhagen,
Denmark.
The Fiske Icelandic Collection is
famous throughout the scholarly world
for both the books it contains and the
series of bibliographies of Icelandic
materials compiled by Professor Herm-
annsson. The collection contains ma-
terial covering all phases of the island’s
development from its discovery and
settlement in the ninth century to the
present day.
The heart of the medieval area of the
Collection consists of sagas, historical
and biographical stories, and eddas,
poems dealing with the mythological
gods and heroes of Scandinavia and Ice-
land. In addition the Collection con-
tains works, in Old Icelandic and Old
Norwegian as well as more recent
books, which trace the development of
saga and eddic literature.
The material dealing with Icelandic
literature since the 16th century in
eludes a copy of the first book printed
in Iceland, a New Testament printed
in 1540. In addition there are copies
of newspapers, pamphlets and books
published in Iceland since that date.
The Icelandic Collection is older
than the University itself, having its
beginnings in the private library of
Professor Fiske, who began gathering
the material while he was a member
of the United States Legation in
Copenhagen during 1850-51, 15 years
before the University was founded.
In 1868 Professor Fiske was appoint-
ed professor of North European lan-
guages and librarian at the University.
He held these posts until 1883 when
he left the University and returned to
Europe where he died in 1904. In his
later years he expanded the Icelandic
Collection until it totaled 8,600 vol-
umes.
In 1905 the Collection and a bequest
from Professor Fiske’s estate for its
maintenance and expansion were given
to the University. With the Collection
came Professor Halldor Hermannsson,
a friend and associate of Professor
Fiske.”