Josiah Kirby Lilly, Jr., assembled one of the finest general collections of books and manuscripts in the United States in the twentieth century. Amassed over three decades, Lilly's collection ultimately totaled more than twenty thousand books and seventeen thousand manuscripts, which were presented by the collector to Indiana University between 1954 and 1957. With special strength in American, British, and Continental literature; Americana; and science and medicine, Lilly's collection was remarkable for its consistently high standard of condition and its wide-ranging scope. Lilly was also the instigator and financial supporter of several bibliographical projects.

J. K. Lilly, Jr., was born on 25 September 1893 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He attended the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1914 from the University of Michigan School of Pharmacy. In that year he married Ruth Brinkmeyer of Indianapolis and then began work at Eli Lilly and Company, the pharmaceutical firm founded in 1876 by his grandfather...