Susie P. Gonzalez

210-999-8406

susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu

Christmas Book Collection Spices Up the Holidays

SAN ANTONIO — Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a good book, says Raymond Judd Jr., chaplain emeritus of Trinity University, adding that if the book is about Christmas, so much the better. About 150 volumes from the extensive collection of Christmas books belonging to Mr. Judd and his wife Mary Jane are on display at the Elizabeth Huth Coates Library through Jan. 15.             Among the displayed manuscripts are bibles and other books that explain or highlight the birth of Jesus Christ. “Without the Christmas story, none of this would have happened,” Mr. Judd says. The exhibit includes historical books, whimsical books, children’s books, and rare books. There’s a “Breeches Bible” from 1602 that was imprinted in London. The title relates to a passage in the Book of Genesis that translates as: “Adam and Eve sewed fig tree leaves together and made themselves breeches.” This  edition predated the more widely known King James Version of the Bible, which was published initially in 1611.             Central to the exhibit are books by award-winning authors. Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for her Christmas poem, “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” which is on display in several book formats. And there’s the first edition of T.S. Eliot’s Journey of the Magi, published Aug. 25, 1927. Also included is Pearl S. Buck’s Once Upon a Christmas Collection.             Not overlooked are interesting stories about the stories, such as a first-edition volume of Madeline in Texas, featuring the famous French schoolgirl, her classmates and their teaching nun in front of the Alamo. Stanley Marcus, a prolific book collector who launched the Neiman Marcus department store, wrote the forward to the first edition of the tome published in October 1999. He had asked that a version of the children’s book be set in Texas to celebrate the main character’s 60th anniversary.             Also included in the exhibit are Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera; “Carol of the Brown King,” a nativity poem by Langston Hughes; and The Farolitos of Christmas by Rodolfo Anaya.             “It has been a fun thing,” Mr. Judd says of his book-collecting hobby. “When we go somewhere, we look up antiquarian book collectors. When you really get into collecting, you have to have help.”                  The display is free and open to the public during regular library operating hours. For library hours, call 999-8126.             Mr. Judd, who graduated from Trinity in 1956 and returned to the skyline campus after earning a theology degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, was chaplain for 32 years at Trinity’s Margarite B. Parker Chapel. He retired in May 1999 and was honored as the University’s distinguished alumnus in October 1999.

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Last updated on December 11, 2000 by the Office of Public Relations