Volumes in the Bowen Collection

Individual volumes include Slogans of the north of England, privately printed for M.A Denham in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in a limited run in 1851; the first edition of The dramatick works of Sir Richard Steele (London, 1723); Mutiny and Murder: confession of Charles Gibbs, a native of Rhode Island..., a recollection of the execution of this pirate around 1830 to which is added short verse entitled A solumn address to Youth; and, an English translation (London, 1755) of the authentic memoirs which chronicle the “ surprising exploits of Mandrin, Captain-General of the French smugglers.”

Holder Borden Bowen and his Books

Bowen was born in Providence in 1844 and lived as a bachelor most of his life in a house built by his father, Tully Dorrance Bowen, at 389 Benefit Street. Known in Athenaeum circles as “Charlie”, he was a partner in the firm Borden and Bowen and was active in the library, to which he often donated books, over most of his life.

The Board of the Athenaeum, upon receiving the collection in 1912, lamented that no space was available to shelve the volumes and that the collection had to be stored in boxes in the bound periodicals room. It was, in part, because of Bowen’s gift to the already overcrowded library that the Board resolved to build an extension onto the existing structure.

As Grace Leonard, the librarian, wrote in the 1912 Annual Report: “The fact that the Athenaeum has received a collection of great interest to its shareholders which it cannot make available for use, serves to emphasize more strongly than ever before the absolute necessity of some early provision for an addition to the building.” Within only a couple of years the Isham addition was completed which greatly expanded the available space. The more valuable volumes in Bowen’s collection were shelved in a place of honor in the south-west corner of the new extension behind the glass enclosed doors that still remain today. After the Platner addition was completed in the 1970s the collection was moved into the climate-controlled Philbrick rare books room.

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