Paul Revere, Isaiah Thomas Bookplate, engraving, Boston, ca. 1798.
The bookplate collection in the Graphic Arts department is arranged in two segments. The first is organized alphabetically by the owner’s last name. The second consists of institutional plates arranged alphabetically by the city name where the institution is located. Reverend Herbert E. Lombard started the collection in 1915, with substantial acquisitions occurring during the following decades. There is no index to the collection by designer, engraver, or printer.
Access
An inventory with location, dates, Allen number (see citation below), and notes for the personal bookplates collection is available as an Excel spreadsheet. The institutional name list is in process. This collection has not been digitized.
Resources
There are several posts illustrating objects from this collection on the Society's blog, Past Is Present.
"The Bookplate Collection of the American Antiquarian Society," by Georgia Brady Barnhill, published by the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers (July 1989), is available as a pdf.
See Charles Dexter Allen's American Bookplates (New York and London, 1894) for a listing of eighteenth-century bookplates that are signed by the engraver.