Personal library of Mikolas Ales

Personal library of Mikolas Ales (1852-1913) can be found at the Library of the Museum of Czech Literature (MCL). The library contains 975 volumes originating from Ales library and most of these items include his bookplates. Ales personal library consists of specialized publications from the area of history, a likely inspiration source for his work (e.g. publications on Czech and Slovak ornaments, folk costumes, information on national culture), biographies of visual artists as well as fiction. Fiction books frequently include items given to Ales by his admirers and friends-authors for whom he draw illustrations. Ales library also contains poetry and plays and we can also find publications on America's native inhabitants. The rest of the library consists of language dictionaries, textbooks, encyclopedias, geography books, publications on drawing, bound volumes of magazines with Ales´ illustrations and other magazines (Palecek, Sotek, Volne smery, Casopis Ceskeho museum, Cesky lid, etc.), songbooks, sheet music and last but not least calendars where Ales recorded his daily affairs and expenditures. The calendars also include a number of drawings. During the processing of the library, items with Ales´ drawings, autograph, inscriptions  and other notes were recorded.

The access to Ales personal library and publication of copies of its important features at the "Knihovny vyznamnych ceskych osobnosti" web site was made possible by the kind support of the management of the Museum of the Czech Culture, namely its Director Zdenek Freisleben and the Head of the MCL Library Alena Petruzelkova. We would hereby like to express our thankfulness for their cooperation. We would also like to thank Lubos Pecha, the Administrator of the MCL Library deposit, for his assistance in the research.