Waller's Autograph Collection
The Waller Collections include extensive collections of books, off-prints and manuscripts, with an emphasis on the history of medicine and science. Swedish physician Erik Waller (1875–1955) gained an international reputation as perhaps the leading collector of books in modern times.
Bibliotheca Walleriana
The collection holds over 20,000 titles and is considered to be among the world's greatest and most valuable collections of literature on medical history. Erik Waller began in 1910 systematically to collect older medical and scientific literature. His ambition was to acquire all books and works that had been influential in the history of medicine and related subjects. In the collection there are 150 incunables, i.e. printed books from the 15th century, the first decades of the printing press. Many of them are extremely rare. Apart from medicine, the collection includes works on physics, chemistry, botany, zoology and astronomy. The book collection was donated to Uppsala University Library in 1950.
Catalogue
Bibliotheca Walleriana : the books illustrating the history of medicine and science collected by dr Erik Waller and bequeathed to the Library of the Royal University of Uppsala: a catalogue / compiled by Hans Sallander. – 2 vols. – Stockholm : Almqvist & Wiksell, 1955. – (Acta Bibliothecae R. Universitatis Upsaliensis; 8–9).
A minor part of the Waller book collection is catalogued in the Swedish national library catalogue Libris:
Books from the Waller Collection in Libris
Literature
Sallander, Hans, "The Bibliotheca Walleriana in the Uppsala University Library". In: Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen, vol. 38, 1951, p. 49–74.
Waller Manuscript Collection
Waller's collection of manuscripts is one of the greatest autograph collections in history. It consists of original handwritten manuscripts first and foremost of doctors and scientists, but also from the fields of arts, philosophy, politics and inventors and discoverers from all corners of the world. There are 38,000 items. The time span covered in the collection is from the Middle Ages to the 1950s. The collection was acquired by the University Library in 1955. It consists mainly letters, but there are also reports, lecture notes, medical prescriptions and consultations and much more.
Overview of the subcollections in Waller manuscript Collection
With initial funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and later with support from Uppsala University, a thorough work on Waller's collection of manuscripts could be started in 2000. Today all the manuscripts have been catalogued and digitised, and available online. Thus Dr Waller's autograph collection has been made freely available for research the world over.
Waller Collection of Off-Prints
The collection of off-prints is a good complement to the book collection and extends from the 18th century to the mid 20th century.
Waller Collection of Commemorative Coins and Medals
Waller donated his collection of coins and medals to Uppsala University Library, today on deposit at Uppsala University Coin Cabinet.
Waller Collection of Commemorative Coins and Medals in Alvin
Literature
Nilsson, Harald, Erik Wallers samling av medicinhistoriska medaljer, (Studia Numismatica Upsaliensia 8), Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2013.
Carl von Linné, 1844.
Who was Erik Waller?
Erik Waller (1875–1955) is internationally famous as possibly the world's most famous book collector in modern times. He started as a young man to collect documents and books that related primarily to medicine and the history of science.
Erik Waller was born in Önum in Västergötland on the 29th November 1875. After completing his studies at school in Skara in 1894 he enrolled in Medicine at Uppsala University whence he graduated in 1900. He went on to post-graduate medical studies at the Karolinska Institutet until 1905. On finishing his studies he practised as a surgeon in various parts of Sweden before returning to his home province in 1909 where he worked in Lidköping until his retirement. He then moved to Stockholm and was the librarian at the The Swedish Society of Medicine between 1940 and 1946. In 1951 he returned once again to Lidköping where he died on the 28th Januari 1955.
This brief description of his life however says nothing about the burning interest that virtually consumed the whole of his waking life, namely his passion for collecting and his love of manuscripts and books. It is said that guests invited to his home for a dinner or drinks would notice after a while that their host had disappeared and the guests were left to their own devices. Waller had meanwhile withdrawn to his library.
With book after book, he managed to accumulate an invaluable collection of over 20,000 titles. It gained international stature with the publication of the catalogue entitled Bibliotheca Walleriana, compiled by the librarian Hans Sallander shortly after Waller's death in 1955.
Not so well-known but of no less value to scholars is Waller's extensive collection of manuscripts, letters and similar documents written by doctors, scientists and other cultural personalities from various eras, his Manuscript Collection. Clues to how Waller managed to acquire these valuable manuscripts, that number around 38,000, can sometimes be found in his own correspondence. His network of contacts, both in Europe and in America, was astoundingly wide-ranging.
Waller donated his book collection to Uppsala University Library as early as 1950. In 1955 the Library bought his Autograph Collection. Waller also collected medals. His medal collection is held at Uppsala University Coin Cabinet.
Portrait of Erik Waller (Photo: Karl Werner Lindhe, 1922)
