The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-03-22

1abors have lust commenced and it
would be foolish to even make an esti-
mate of the size of his library ten years
from this time.
Mr.. Mcfarland is a man of middle
age. He is a son of the late Judge N.
c. Mcfarland. He has all the money
he needs and has time to indulge his
taste for books. He was once leader
of athletics in Topeka but stroke of
paralysis partially disabled him and IN
capacitated him from manual labor.
Mr.. Mcfarland lives in nine room
cottage and four of the rooms are given
up to book shelves. He says that he
will enlarge his house before long-to
make space for more books. There is
still some space to be filled in his pres
ent shelves, for he has carefully CLASH
| fed his collection and there is room for
more books on history and biography
especially. His fiction section is crowd
| ed and there is little space left for
books on travel
Any one passing Mr.. McFarland's
| house will be attracted by the queer
| style of architecture. Jutting out
! toward the street is a room with only
| two or three small windows which are
| just under the roofs and with no out
| side doors. Mr.. Mcfarland laughingly
calls this his Joint" because it can not
| be entered from the outside. 1t is real
| ly the favorite portion of his library: IL
| is a room "a feet long and II wide. The
| windows are high up in the walls so
| that there is no loss of shelf space. This
| room is devoted entirely to history and
biography and is the largest depart
ment in the magnificent collection.
| There are /, 635. books of biography and
| 1918 of history.
Among the rare books in this depart
| ment are Clarendon'S Rebellion, Bur-
netts History of the Reformation, a
set of Hume published in 1900 and Ran
kin's History of France published in
| 1901, and there is also beautiful set IN
| eight volumes of Murphy's Tacitus pub
lished in 1911. Mr.. Mcfarland values
| highly a set of Is volumes in embossed
| calf containing the dispatches of Field
Marshal Wellington, published in Lon
/ don in 1887.
There is an excellent section on Amer
| lean history comprising pa volumes, but
| Mr.. Mcfarland hopes to make many ad-
ditions to this subject. He already has
nearly all the standard works on Amer
| lean history, but he realizes that there
| is much which might be classified as
! history of the states of the union which
| he has not yet secured.
Mr.. Mcfarland is especially fond OF
Napoleon, and one section of the library
| is devoted to the great French general
| There are 1877 volumes on Napoleon.
Adjoining this room of history and BIZ
| ography is a smaller one which is de-
voted to fiction. 1t comprises about l.
| 500 volumes, some of them in rare and
| costly bindings. There are Barbauld's
| English novels in so volumes, beau
| tifully bound in leather and fine sets of
| Dickens, Thackeray and the American
| is an expensive edition Of the Arabian
| Nights, the non-expurgated version,
which cost the owner something more
| than S200-how much more is not known.
| There is also a section of the current
| works of fiction, and it is evident from
a glance at their pages that Mr.. Nc
| F'arland does not confine his reading to
the literature of the past.
The room which was probably intend
| ed for the parlor of the house is de-
voted to essays and travels There are
| probably over 1000 volumes in this
room, and they comprise some of the
most rare of Mr.. McFarland's books.
| There are Montraye's Travels in three
| large octave volumes, published in 1882;
| Swinburn's Travels in Spain, published
| in 1779; Wilson's Pelew Islands, pub
| lshed in 1888; Bruce's Travels to Dis
/ cover the Source of the Nile. in five
| large volumes. published in 1870; Pole
4 hapton's Gallery of Art, in six volumes.
| published in 1918. He also has a COM
| plete set of Button, comprising nine vol
| umes, on the history of birds, nine vol
| umes on the natural history of beasts,
and one volume on the natural history