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Ralph Wormeley
Call number: 2012.1.4 (Wellford collection)

The earliest bookplates in the collection are associated with prominent families in colonial Virginia. Bookplates displaying coats-of-arms became increasingly ornate in the 1700s and were often imported from England. Ralph Wormeley (1745–1806) of Rosegill, Middlesex County, used this elaborate Chippendale-style armorial plate on his bookplate. He assembled a large library, and many of the volumes are now part of the collections of the Virginia Historical Society.

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William Byrd
Reflections upon Learning
Call number: Rare Z986 B95 B17 1700

At the time of his death in 1744, William Byrd of Westover had the greatest private collection of books in colonial America. According to Charles Dexter Allen, an authority on bookplates, Byrd’s Jacobean book plate is "a very interesting specimen of its class. The profuse mantling thrown high in the air, the shell-lined background, and the curtain upheld at the ends are prominent characteristics. A rich abundance of fruit overflows from two cornucopias, and the motto-ribbon is twined in and out through the scrolls at the base."

The Latin motto means “To turn pale from no crime."

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C.S.S. School Ship Patrick Henry
Elements of Seamanship
Call number: C.I. 2466

C.C.S. Patrick Henry, Confederate Naval School Ship Recollections of a Rebel Reefer
Call number: E596 M84

The C.S.S. Patrick Henry served as the school ship for the Confederate Navy. This floating naval academy was used to train midshipmen from 1862 until it burned during the evacuation fire in Richmond in 1865.

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Julius John Lankes
Call numbers: 2012.1.15, 2012.1.16, 2012.1.17

Noted artist J. J. Lankes (1884–1960) helped revive the art form of the traditional woodcut. He moved to Virginia in 1925, and many of his woodcuts depict scenes of life in Tidewater. He also did book illustrations for such writers as Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, and Ellen Glasgow. Lankes advertised that "[t]he quality of design in a bookplate reveals the taste of the owner, and naturally no one with good taste would affix a bookplate of poor design to a fine or cherished book."

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Alexander Weddell
Call number: 2012.1.5, 2012.1.6, 2012.1.12 (Wellford Collection)

Diplomat and president and benefactor of the Virginia Historical Society, Alexander Wilbourne Weddell’s (1876–1948) bookplates reflect different stages in his life. One plate was presumably used when he was a young man, and he had another plate designed later for his personal library. The third plate was used for the extensive library he assembled at his home, Virginia House.

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