News & Events

On Monday, February 22, as the inaugural event in the Lilly Library's new program, "Mondays at the Lilly Library," Joel Silver, Associate Director and Curator of Books at the Library, will speak about J.K. Lilly Jr.'s collecting interests and his considerable achievements as a collector of books and manuscripts.  The talk will take place at 4:00 p.m., in the Slocum Room of the Lilly Library.

J. K. Lilly, Jr., Bibliophile:

For most of his life, J. K. Lilly, Jr., of Indianapolis, was a devoted collector in many different fields.  For some three decades, beginning in the mid-1920s, Mr. Lilly's collecting attention was focused on assembling one of the finest private libraries of rare books and manuscripts in the world.  Mr. Lilly's collection, which was quite wide-ranging in scope, was particularly strong in  American and British literature, American history, voyages and travels, and the history of science and medicine.  In the mid-1950s, Mr. Lilly donated his collection of 20,000 books  and 17,00 manuscripts to Indiana University, where it became the founding collection of the Lilly Library, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.