Emily Millicent Sowerby (September 7, 1883 – October 23, 1977) was a

bibliographer Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

known for her ''Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson''.

Biography

Sowerby was born in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. After graduating from Girton College, Cambridge, she worked in London as a cataloger for

book dealer Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...

Wilfrid Michael Voynich and briefly as a librarian at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

before serving as a counterintelligence agent in Paris during World War I. Upon her return to England in 1916, Sowerby worked as a cataloger at Sotheby's, the first woman in the 'expert' workforce of an auction house. She moved to the United States in 1923, finding employment as a cataloger with the American Art Association and then at the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

(until January 1925). In March 1925, she became a

for A. S. W. Rosenbach's Rosenbach Company in Philadelphia and New York City where she was employed until February 1942. Sowerby was appointed Bibliographer of the Jefferson Collection at the Library of Congress in July 1942. She retired to

Muncie, Indiana Muncie ( ) is an incorporated city and the county seat, seat of Delaware County, Indiana, Delaware County, Indiana. Previously known as Buckongahelas Town, named after the legendary Delaware Chief.http://www.delawarecountyhistory.org/history/docs ...

, where she died on October 23, 1977.

Major works

''Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson''

In 1942, the Library of Congress appointed Sowerby to prepare a catalog of books that Thomas Jefferson had sold to the U.S. government in 1815. The catalog was intended to commemorate the bicentennial of Jefferson's birth in 1943, however, owing to the complexity of the project, the first volume did not appear until 1952. The final volume was published in 1959.

''Rare People and Rare Books''

Sowerby published a memoir of her professional career, ''Rare People and Rare Books'', in 1967.

References

External links

Library of Congress – Digitized Items from the Thomas Jefferson Library Collection including ''Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sowerby, E. Millicent 1883 births 1977 deaths Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge American bibliographers English bibliographers People from Beverley Women bibliographers English women writers