James Fraser Gluck (1852-1897)
Lawyer, Professor, Collector & Curator, of Buffalo, New York
He was born in Niagara Falls, New York, and was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, before graduating at the head of his class from Cornell University (1874). He studied law in Buffalo and was admitted to the Bar in 1876, entering into partnership with Daniel H. McMillan in 1877. The firm gained a reputation for its expertise in handling large corporate interests and among their long-standing clients they counted the Vanderbilts through the New York Central, the Lake Shore, the West Shore, the Michigan Central, and other railroads that ran through Buffalo. As a trial lawyer, Mr. Gluck was pre-eminent in his profession, "a brilliant and powerful orator."
He was elected Professor of the Law of Corporations in the Buffalo Law School, and in 1883 he was elected a trustee of Cornell. He was the leading force behind the creation of Cornell's School of Philosophy, and chiefly responsible for establishing a new system of scholarships whereby the university's poor and meritorious students received $250 every year for four years. In 1884, he organized the Central Republican Club of Buffalo which with a membership of 2,500 was the largest campaign club then ever formed in the city. He was a favorite campaign speaker, a highly sought after after-dinner speaker, and his addresses on literary and scientific topics won him high praise. In private, Mr. Gluck was a collector of rare books, manuscripts, autographed letters, and historical documents. His private library was reckoned to be the largest in Buffalo and was, "distinctly rich in history, philosophy, science, and the classics of Greece and Rome." In 1880, he married Effie, daughter of Professor Charles M. Tyler, of Cornell University. They lived at 775 Front Avenue, Buffalo, and were survived by two children, both of whom achieved fame - Margel Gluck as an international violinist, and Sinclair Gluck as a writer of crime fiction.
He was President of the Grosvenor Library from 1885, and from 1885 to 1887 he was Curator of the Buffalo Library. At the latter in 1887, he surprised and delighted the trustees by presenting the library with his own collection of 492 autographed manuscripts, letters, historical documents, and rare books, "all superbly bound in levant morocco," many of which were secured in Europe. It was claimed to be the most valuable collection of its kind in America, far exceeding similar collections at the Astor Library in New York, the Boston Public Library, and even the manuscript collection of George William Childs. Those represented in the collection include among others: Dryden, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, James Fenimore Cooper, Bayard Taylor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Hawthorne, Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Washington, Burr, Lincoln, Hamilton, Rousseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Madame de Staël, etc., etc. On receipt, the library's superintendent reckoned the Gluck Collection was worth at least $10,000.
In 1991, Gluck's name made the headlines again across America. In 1885, as part of his gift to the Buffalo Library, he successfully persuaded Mark Twain to donate the manuscript of his recently published novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At that time, Twain - the former editor-owner of the Buffalo Express - saw no value in his old manuscripts and was only too happy to comply. But, despite his best efforts, Twain could only find the second half of the manuscript, believing that the first half had been lost at the printers. Two years later (1887), Twain eventually found the other half (665 pages handwritten between 1876 and 1883) and, true to his word, sent it on to Gluck. It is generally speculated that Gluck took the manuscript home to read and/or have it bound, but one way or the other it was lost after he dropped dead unexpectedly in New York in 1897. After an unsuccessful second marriage to James Hughes Massie (Literary Agent for Agatha Christie, Elinor Glyn, etc.), Effie returned from London in 1919 and moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her children. The manuscript remained missing until 1991, when it was rediscovered in a trunk in the attic of the Hollywood home of Gluck's granddaughter, Barbara. It is now reunited with its other half at the Gluck Collection in the renamed Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.
He was elected Professor of the Law of Corporations in the Buffalo Law School, and in 1883 he was elected a trustee of Cornell. He was the leading force behind the creation of Cornell's School of Philosophy, and chiefly responsible for establishing a new system of scholarships whereby the university's poor and meritorious students received $250 every year for four years. In 1884, he organized the Central Republican Club of Buffalo which with a membership of 2,500 was the largest campaign club then ever formed in the city. He was a favorite campaign speaker, a highly sought after after-dinner speaker, and his addresses on literary and scientific topics won him high praise. In private, Mr. Gluck was a collector of rare books, manuscripts, autographed letters, and historical documents. His private library was reckoned to be the largest in Buffalo and was, "distinctly rich in history, philosophy, science, and the classics of Greece and Rome." In 1880, he married Effie, daughter of Professor Charles M. Tyler, of Cornell University. They lived at 775 Front Avenue, Buffalo, and were survived by two children, both of whom achieved fame - Margel Gluck as an international violinist, and Sinclair Gluck as a writer of crime fiction.
He was President of the Grosvenor Library from 1885, and from 1885 to 1887 he was Curator of the Buffalo Library. At the latter in 1887, he surprised and delighted the trustees by presenting the library with his own collection of 492 autographed manuscripts, letters, historical documents, and rare books, "all superbly bound in levant morocco," many of which were secured in Europe. It was claimed to be the most valuable collection of its kind in America, far exceeding similar collections at the Astor Library in New York, the Boston Public Library, and even the manuscript collection of George William Childs. Those represented in the collection include among others: Dryden, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, James Fenimore Cooper, Bayard Taylor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Hawthorne, Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Washington, Burr, Lincoln, Hamilton, Rousseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Madame de Staël, etc., etc. On receipt, the library's superintendent reckoned the Gluck Collection was worth at least $10,000.
In 1991, Gluck's name made the headlines again across America. In 1885, as part of his gift to the Buffalo Library, he successfully persuaded Mark Twain to donate the manuscript of his recently published novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At that time, Twain - the former editor-owner of the Buffalo Express - saw no value in his old manuscripts and was only too happy to comply. But, despite his best efforts, Twain could only find the second half of the manuscript, believing that the first half had been lost at the printers. Two years later (1887), Twain eventually found the other half (665 pages handwritten between 1876 and 1883) and, true to his word, sent it on to Gluck. It is generally speculated that Gluck took the manuscript home to read and/or have it bound, but one way or the other it was lost after he dropped dead unexpectedly in New York in 1897. After an unsuccessful second marriage to James Hughes Massie (Literary Agent for Agatha Christie, Elinor Glyn, etc.), Effie returned from London in 1919 and moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her children. The manuscript remained missing until 1991, when it was rediscovered in a trunk in the attic of the Hollywood home of Gluck's granddaughter, Barbara. It is now reunited with its other half at the Gluck Collection in the renamed Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.
