Books of the Month

Ian Maxwell Old Norse Collection

The Library recently acquired the Old Norse collection of Professor Ian Maxwell (1901-1979). Maxwell was Professor of English at the University of Melbourne and an Old Norse scholar of distinction. The bulk of the collection consists of sagas in the original language, as well as poetry, folktales, and legends. It includes the work of the great Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) and the Icelandic Family and Sturlunga sagas, as well as supporting critical and reference works. Many of the books contain Maxwell's marginalia, word studies, and annotations, appropriately in lead pencil: a treasure trove in itself for students.

Medieval literature and history is a collection strength of the Carmelite Library, with constantly expanding growth in the subject. Christianity was made legal in Iceland at the Althing of the year 1000. The sagas of the Icelanders, written in the 13th and 14th centuries, are dramatic records of events in the Northern world during the 10th and 11th centuries. They are also works of brilliant artistic construction, one of the foremost phenomena of medieval literature. The sagas describe, amongst other things, the transition from the practice of Norse religion to the gradual acceptance of Christianity in Iceland but also across Scandanavia and the intervening land masses.