The grandson of a Canadian publisher is suing the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s for the illegal possession of some 4,500 books in its Queen Elizabeth II Library that he says went missing from an auction house in 1981. Charles Musson Jr., whose grandfather founded the Musson Book Company in Toronto in 1892, wants the books back as well as $200,000 (U.S. $132,000) for damages that some rare, first-edition copies have suffered since the library began circulating them.
University Librarian Richard Ellis said in the June 27 National Post that the books were donated to the library by Robert Russell and H. E. W. Brownlee 20 years ago and that Musson has no conclusive evidence that the books were obtained illegally. “The university accepted in good faith collections in which it had no reason to doubt the provenance,” Ellis said, who admitted that the books may hold some sentimental value for Musson.
The collection includes numerous books personally inscribed by such famous authors as Charles Dickens and John Buchan.
Musson claims that Russell, who was an employee of the Waddington McLean auction house in 1981 and hired to index the collection in preparation for sale, donated the books to the library instead in return for an honorary doctorate. University lawyers have characterized the case as “ancient and bizarre.”
Posted July 2, 2001.