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What will very soon be a national Catholic center for rare and
out-of-print Catholic books will be a dream come true for an Atlanta layman.
A former reporter, FBI man, company security director, and long an
avid book collector, Frank McArdle, now retired, can be found amidst shelves,
boxes, tables and piles of books at the St. Vincent de Paul headquarters here.
And very soon his beloved project of a national center for such prized Catholic
books will come into being, based in Atlanta and operating form the Society
offices.
McArdle, looking over collector’s dreams like a 150-year-old
Bible, a first edition by George Bernard Shaw, a liturgical book bearing the
signature of the late Archbishop of Atlanta, Paul J. Hallinan, as well as an
1818 edition on meditations with the late Bishop Francis Hyland’s
signature, is rightly enthusiastic about his gigantic undertaking.
“The whole purpose of this idea,” says McArdle, “is
to preserve rare Catholic literature.” He is quick to add it is not a
profit making venture, although any funds generated through the program will be
donated to the local St. Vincent de Paul Society, headquartered at 304 Parkway
Drive, N.E. “These books,” he says, “are really pieces of
valuable Catholic antiquity. We want to prevent these rare volumes from going
into some waste heap.”
McArdle is presently in the complicated process of preserving,
cataloguing, indexing and collecting the valued works on many Catholic topics.
He is assisted in his work by Sister Marie Whitehead of the Sisters of St.
Joseph of Carondolet as the two of them dust off volumes, check copyrights,
flip through faded pages, and delve bravely into cartons filled with books in
the small corner of the huge Vincentian warehouse.
Collecting books is nothing new for Frank McArdle who has an
enviable collection of over 2,000 volumes, mostly humor. A Philadelphia
transplant in Atlanta, he worked as a reporter for the Philadelphia Enquirer,
then was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation where he was a member of the
Dillinger squad and administrative assistant to the late J. Edgar Hoover. He
then moved to Atlanta, heading the security system for Sears Roebuck until his
recent retirement. He has worked with Joe Flanagan, director of the St. Vincent
de Paul Society, for over seven years, his efforts now totally devoted to the
facet and challenge of preserving and maintaining rare pieces of Catholic
literature. Although the Society has long maintained a business in selling old
and donated books, McArdle says most of them were dealt with in bulk, sold for
pennies or delegated to a dusty shelf somewhere. There is a wide range of books
covering varied topics. There are textbooks, medical books, TV repair manuals,
children’s books, novels, encyclopedias, historical texts, magazines,
periodicals, paperbacks.
A recent collection of assorted paperbacks, some 1,500 of them,
was recently sold to a buyer who is planning to open a local store dealing
solely in paperbacks. He got a head start on his inventory thanks to the
Society collection.
The concept of a national center for rare religious books is
believed to be the first such center in the United States and will provide a
clearing house for scarce and out of print Catholic publications. The Center
will provide data on books on hand, as well as furnish information where
particular books wanted are available in other Society book stores across the
country.
Among the treasured volumes now on hand in Atlanta are: an 1818
edition of “Meditations For Every Day In The Year,” signed by Bishop
Hyland. This book is an exact copy in its text and prefaces of the original
volume, first printed in England in 1669 during the Reformation. “It is
among the first devotional works published in this country,” McArdle
notes, adding that it dates back to the times when Catholics were being
persecuted by Henry VIII.
Another valuable possession is an 1884 edition of “Short
Points for Mental Prayer,” an 1884 volume entitled “A Catholic
Dictionary,” which contains doctrine, discipline, rites, ceremonies,
councils of religious orders of the Catholic Church. A “History of the
American College, Rome” printed by Benziger in 1910 is prized by McArdle
who says with a smile “They (Benziger) don’t even have a copy.”
Other valued editions include a “Catechism of Christian
Doctrine” published in 1909, a 50th edition of an 1850
“Catechism of Perseverance,” “A Spirit of Prayer” printed
in 1872, Charles Darwins’ “The Descent of Man and Selection in
Relation to Sex,” printed in 1896, “Matters Liturgical,” dated
1956 and including Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan’s signature.
Another noteworthy possession is a first edition of George Bernard
Shaw’s “The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God.”
“All of the books, every one of them, are rare editions, or
scarce out-of-print books,” says McArdle.
With 500 assorted books on religious and theological topics now
headquartered at the book division of the Society, Atlanta Vincentians, thanks
to the devoted work of Frank McArdle, will soon proudly be the national center
for Catholic books of antiquity.
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