The Mary B. Mathaus Endowed Library Collection on the Book and English Literature was established in 1995. Mary and her father, George, longtime residents of the Chicago area, loved Notre Dame and regularly attended football games together. Mary’s mother died when she was very young, and her father raised her alone.

Mary taught elementary school for more than 30 years in the Chicago suburbs and had a special interest in reading and English. Upon her death, she left a bequest to Notre Dame. As a memorial to her, the University established this endowment and the Mary Barbara Mathaus Graduate Fellowship, which supports a graduate student in the Department of English.

The Mary B. Mathaus Endowed Library Collection on the Book and English Literature supports the history of the book and includes any aspect of book-arts as they relate to English or American literary texts, as well as the book as a physical object.

Recently, more than 20 rare books were acquired with the help of this fund, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (illustrated by Arthur Rackham), and the first edition of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole (1765), one of the earliest Gothic novels. Numerous books of poetry to enhance the collection of the major American poet Robert Creeley have been added, and holdings of British small press poetry publishers, such as Carcanet and Anvil Press, were completed.