HYDE, Mary (Morley Crapo) 1912-2003 (Mary Viscount Eccles)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 8, 1912, in Detroit, MI; died August 26, 2003, in Somerville, NJ. Book collector and author. Hyde, who became Lady Eccles when she married her second husband in 1984, was a noted bibliophile who specialized in the writings and records of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Born into a wealthy Detroit family, she earned an A.B. from Vassar in 1934, followed by graduate work at Columbia University, where she received her master's degree in 1936 and doctorate in 1947. Hyde began collecting books in earnest after marrying her first husband, an attorney who shared this passion, and together they amassed an impressive library at Four Oaks Farm in New Jersey that included rare books and papers from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. As a result of her growing expertise, she also served on various advisory councils and committees for the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and Harvard University. In addition, she was a member of the advisory council for the Private Papers of Boswell and cofounded Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library in 1992. Hyde was the author of Playwriting for Elizabethans, 1600-1605 (1949), Catalogus Bibliothecae Hydeianae: The Hyde Collection of Works of Samuel Johnson (1966), and Four Oaks Library (1967), as well as the coeditor of a number of scholarly works, including The Impossible Friendship: Boswell and Mrs. Thrale (1973) and Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas: A Correspondence (1982).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Guardian (London, England), September 16, 2003, p. 25.

Independent (London, England), September 5, 2003, p. 20.

New York Times, August 30, 2003, p. B7.

Times (London, England), September 1, 2003, p. 25.