"A classic reference book. . . . The Beinecke Collection is renowned for its importance and thoroughness, for including major early rarities as well as modern ephemera. This description of the collection is accurate in detail and thorough in coverage. Most commendable are the annotations, which bring out all the important elements in a book that pertains to the islands."--Roger E. Stoddard, Curator of Rare Books, Harvard College Library


This distinguished catalogue of the Lesser Antilles provides extensive, precise descriptions of approximately one thousand printed books and one thousand manuscripts that Walter Beinecke, Jr., collected over several decades and donated to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he is a trustee. The collection includes hundreds of rare original documents, fifty maps, plantation reports, correspondence, and oil paintings and watercolors.
The catalogue of the Walter Beinecke, Jr., Collection describes unique manuscript material and many rare books more fully than previously available in bibliographies. The Houghs have applied advanced bibliographical knowledge to this work and in some instances have added cogent historical annotation.
The collection's content addresses issues of broad international significance. Full understanding of the early history of the United States can best be achieved by studying interaction among the European states and the Antilles, as well as the commercial connection between the continental colonies and the Antilles. During the century and a half represented in this collection, England grew from a northern European power to a dominant world power, its growth largely funded by wealth provided from the Indies.
This work will be invaluable to libraries with holdings in Caribbean material, slave and slave trade material, economic history, American cartography, early American history, and general American travel books. It will be useful to all historians writing on the history of the region or on the history of colonialism and the slave trade generally.

Samuel J. and Penelope R. O. Hough own and operate a book business specializing in rare and scholarly books and have extensive library and curatorial experience. They have organized archival collections for Brown University, the Rhode Island Hospital, and the Newport Historical Society and have organized the archives and design library of Gorham, Inc. They are the American agent for the Biblioteca Berenson at the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence and have published extensively on Gorham silver.

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