Reenpää collection and room
In late 2004, Professor Heikki A. Reenpää, the long-time Managing Director of the Otava Publishing Company, donated his valuable private collection to the Helsinki University Library, nowadays the National Library of Finland. The donated collection, over 20,000 volumes, is one of the most valuable donations ever received by the Library during its entire history. A very attractive collection room with beech display cases was opened at the National Library in January of 2008.
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The Reenpää collection that evolved from the Renqvist-Reenpää family´s home library contains many bibliophilically valuable books, including examples, published in the 1640s during the early period of Swedish Rule, from Peder Wald´s printing press. Also found in the collection is the song book and hymnal Piae cantiones - editions published in Rostock (1582) and Visingö (1679) - as well as an extensive series of Finnish-language New Testament Bibles ranging from Agricola´s first Finnish-language version translated in 1548 to the Bibles closer to our own time.
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The Reenpää room's bookcases and atmosphere.
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The Royal Academy in Turku´s doctoral dissertations are a valuable source of scholarly and scientific literature. The donated collection contains over 3,000 doctoral dissertations of the total of 4,450 that were published in Turku during the years 1642-1827.
The collection´s more recent part places particular emphasis on works of fiction. Included, for example, are the first editions of 220 Finnish authors. The collection contains complete series of the works of such authors as Aleksis Kivi, Juhani Aho, Eino Leino, F. E. Sillanpää - the winner of a Nobel Prize in 1940 - and Mika Waltari, Finland´s most well-known writers internationally. The year 2008 marks the 100th Anniversary of Waltari´s birth. His novel Sinuhe has been translated into 40 languages and the Hollywood movie The Egyptian was released in 1954 by 20th Century Fox.
Early phases of book illustrationz
Heikki A. Reenpää
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The Reenpää library also presents early examples of Finnish book illustrating. The first woodcut known to have been printed in Finland was published by the Turku-domiciled Peder Wald´s printing press in 1650 - eight years after its founding - and it depicted runic stones in Professor Michael Wexionius´s book Epitome descriptionés Sueciae. The work of Jonas Grimsteen, the printing press´s first full-time woodcut engraver, also appears in the donated collection´s copy of Bishop Johannes Gezelius the Elder´s compilation Encyclopedia synoptica dating from the year 1672. The Reenpää Collection also has several extremely rare Vyborg printings that were published before the destruction of Vyborg and its only printing press in 1710.
Professor Heikki A. Reenpää, the Otava Book Foundation and the National Library of Finland implemented the collection room jointly.
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The Reenpää collection room can also be examined virtually at the address: www.kansalliskirjasto.fi/extra/reenpaa/index.html
Details of Reenpää collection:
www.kansalliskirjasto.fi/extra/reenpaa/esitys/index.html
Further information:
Library Secretary Pasi Koste, Tel. 09 191 23195, pasi.koste(at)helsinki.fi
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IN BRIEF
"You cannot find two people in the world who would have read the same book."
Esko Rahikainen
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