Library
R. A. Lafferty on his personal library:
“… sometime in late 1946, I came home from the war and went back to work in the Electric business. Everything went well with me. I had friends and fun. I accumulated 8,000 books, all of them choice.” 1
Keith Purtell (who took the above photo in 1998) described the library:
“Ray opened a plain door and I followed him between two long book shelves that towered above my head. They ran most the length of the room, leaving only enough space for a left turn near the far wall. The shelves were packed with hundreds of books. We turned left and I saw another narrow corridor framed by high, full book shelves on the right and several book-lined avenues radiating off to the left, each disappearing into dim recesses. We walked straight along the wall to the far corner and made another left turn, whereupon our final destination was in sight; Ray’s “office.” He told me this was where he did all his writing. He gestured to a rickety little table and a manual typewriter. A simple gooseneck lamp hovered expectantly over the typewriter.”
It appears that no inventory was taken of Lafferty’s personal library before it was dismantled. However, some of his letters and interviews included commentary on books. As these are identified, they will be added to this page, along with a Lafferty quote if available.
Books Reviewed
![]() | Adventures in Time and Space, by Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, 1946
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![]() | The Ancient Engineers, by L. Sprague De Camp, 1963
· wikipedia · isfdb · kirkus · goodreads · amazon · used · openlibrary · preview |
![]() | The Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 Volumes & Index, 1913
· wikipedia · oce · archive.org · kindle |
![]() | The City of God, by St. Augustine, 426
· wikipedia · goodreads · ccel · archive.org · amazon · preview |
![]() | The Decline of the West, by Oswald Spangler, 1922
· wikipedia · goodreads · archive.org · kindle · used · preview |
![]() | Endangered Species, by Gene Wolfe, 1989
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![]() | Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, by Harry Thurston Peck (ed.), 1963
· wikipedia · perseus · archive.org · amazon · used |
![]() | A History of Technology, by Charles Singer (ed.), 5 Volumes, 1954
· archive.org (abridged) · amazon · related history · used |
![]() | The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, 1776
· wikipedia · manybooks · libertyfund · goodreads · amazon · kindle · used |
![]() | Plutarch’s Lives, 1st century
· wikipedia · manybooks · archive.org · goodreads · goodreads · amazon |
Books Cited
![]() | The Bow in the Clouds, by E.I. Watkin, 1931In 2011 and 2014, Andrew Ferguson reviewed the influence of E.I. Watkin on stories in Through Elegant Eyes. Gregorio noted that Lafferty quoted Watkin in Tales of Midnight. |
Books Photographed
![]() | The Diary of Samuel Pepys, by Samuel Pepys, 1669 4· Latham monograph · wikipedia · about · ebook · goodreads · kindle |
Books Sold
![]() | Emmanuel Burden, Merchant, of Thames St., in the city of London, exporter of hardware: a record of his lineage, speculations, last day and death, by Hilaire Belloc, 1904 5Includes 34 illustrations by G.K. Chesterton. |
![]() | The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene, 1951 5 |
![]() | Literary Distractions, by R. A. Knox, 1958 5· wikipedia · society · the point · archive.org · amazon · amazon |
![]() | The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, by Lewis Thomas, 1979 5 |
![]() | The NIV triglot Old Testament, by John R. Kohlenberger, 1981 5Interlinear Greek-Hebrew-English Old Testament. · amazon · used · sample page |
Writers Cited
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World’s Second-Best Novelist 2
- Honoré de Balzac (1850) · archive.org · manybooks · goodreads
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Early Influences 2
- Hilaire Belloc (1953) · manybooks · upenn · goodreads · amazon
- Donn Byrne (1928) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- J.B. Cabell (1958) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- G.K. Chesterton (1936) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Charles Dickens (1870) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Graham Greene (1991) · goodreads · amazon
- Bret Harte (1902) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Lafcadio Hearn (1904) · Kwaidan · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- W. Somerset Maugham (1965) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Herman Melville (1891) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1894) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
- Mark Twain (1910) · manybooks · goodreads · amazon
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Science Fiction 2
- Poul Anderson (2001) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Michael Bishop · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- John Brunner (1995) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Arthur C. Clarke (2008) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Jack Dann · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Larry Niven · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Barry Malzberg · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Jerry Pournelle · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Theodore Sturgeon (1985) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- Steven Utley (2013) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
- A.E. van Vogt (2000) · isfdb · goodreads · amazon
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Catholic Social Teaching 6
- Philippe Buchez (1865)
- Charles-Francois Cheve (1875)
- William Cobbett (1835) · quotes · society · free books
- Richard Cobden (1865) · society · archive.org
- Frédéric Ozanam (1853) · quotes · 50m video · Letters · Bio · St. Vincent
- Vincent Pecci, Pope Leo XIII (1903) · encyclopedia · Rerum Novarum
Notes
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R. A. Lafferty to Charlotte Anderson, August 3, 1993 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8
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Interview by Robert J. Whitaker, At The Sleepy Sailor, The Sons of the Sand, 1979 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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Cover blurb by R. A. Lafferty, for Endangered Species, Gene Wolfe ↩
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Photo, A.F. report, 2014 ↩
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Page 52, The Flame is Green, Corroboree Press,1985 ↩