Guide to the Clara T. Evans Bookplate Collection,
circa 1740-1960 [bulk 1890-1940.]

Clara Therese Evans (also known as Mrs. Hubert Evans) was evidently a staff member at Ware Memorial Library, Columbia University, who collected bookplates. She corresponded with numerous libraries, other collectors, and some artists in search of bookplates to add to her collection.

Bookplates from a variety of countries and time periods, mainly American and European. Armorial and pictorial plates are included, as well as those consisting of portraits, family crests, or mottoes. Plates include engravings, etchings, lithographs, wood engravings, woodcuts, watercolors, and photographs; styles include classical, imitation Celtic, imitation Gothic, symbolist, cubist, art nouveau, and others. Bookplate designers featured include Elisha Brown Bird, F.C. Blank, Oscar T. Blackburn, Daniel B. Fearing, Edwin Davis French, Otto W. Fuhrmann, W.F. Hopson, Dan Burne Jones, William Jordan, J.W. Jameson, Arthur N. McDonald, Sidney L. Smith, Ismael Smith, Leslie Victor Smith, J. Winfred Spenceley, Wilbur Macey Stone, Margaret Ely Webb. The collection is only partially organized, so every volume contains some bookplates that are extraneous to its main focus. A few newspaper clippings, and letters to Mrs. Evans from various libraries, other collectors, and artists, are interspersed with the bookplates.

Book owners whose bookplates are in the collection include Charles Dickens, David Garrick, James Branch Cabell, Thomas Bird Mosher, book collector George A. Plimpton, Winfred Porter Truesdell, William Whewell, and numerous institutions including Avery Library, Columbia College (New York City), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ohio State University, Bangor (Me.) Public Library, Harvard College Library, other library collections at Harvard University, Princeton University Library, and the Grolier Club.