AN ENDOWMENT AT WORK

Retired professor assures a legacy of rare editions

Dr. Jerry Don Vann was a college student before he read his first Charles Dickens book. Inspired by an English professor, he found a passion for Victorian literature that he’s never lost. In fact, he wrote his dissertation on Dickens’ classic work, David Copperfield.

The passion is with him during his many trips to England, where once a year he has dinner with Dickens’ great-grandson. It leads him to quaint antique shops, where he hunts for hidden treasures – first editions from the Victorian Era.

That passion explains why he recently worked with the UNT Foundation and UNT’s Office of Development to establish the Vann Victorian Endowment, which will help purchase books for the Rare Book Room at UNT. He has donated many of his editions to the collection and wants to assure that it continues to grow.

“Literature that survives from one generation to the next does so because it speaks of universal truths,” he said. “That is what makes it great.”

Dr. Vann, a Regents Professor of English and professor emeritus at UNT who recently retired from teaching, has built a unique collection for the library. Among them, a first edition of Dickens’ Hard Times.

“That was one of the rarest books I gave them,” Vann said. “I found it in 1971 in an antique mall in London.”

Publishers of the era assembled books in phases. Each group of books’ bindings slightly differed from the rest. The donated edition is also from the first binding.

Vann also donated an 1853 edition of Dickens’ Bleak House. However, he will tell you it is not the most valuable version of that book he’s seen.

“My first first edition, my mother gave me,” he recalled. “It was a beautiful copy of Bleak House.”

As a graduate student in the 1960s, Vann sported a beard, a feature his mother was determined to change.

“You know how mothers are,” he said. “They hate it when their sons grow facial hair.”

Mrs. Vann first tried to bribe him with a shiny, new electric razor, with no success. But she soon discovered his weakness, and purchased the book.

“I sold my beard for that book,” he said. “The Rare Book Room probably won’t get that one. I think it will have to go to my son.”

Dickens editions are more difficult to find these days, he said. Widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Dickens (he recently was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Company for an aired panel discussion), Vann’s schedule is demanding. Clearly, time for treasure hunting is not easy to find.

The Vann Victorian Endowment is his way of assuring the fruits of his passion continue to grow.

“His passion for Dickens and anything Victorian is effervescent and contagious,” said Mary Durio, curator of the Rare Book and Texana collections for the UNT Libraries. “It is a pleasure to house the items he has so painstakingly gathered during his lifetime.”

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Website updated: April 25, 2005. Website comments or corrections: rsimmans@unt.edu