Books

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 Memoir, correspondence and miscellanies, from the paper of Thomas JeffersonNational Széchényi Library has always aimed at acquiring a complete set of all the books published in Hungary. The Library relies primarily on legal deposit copies provided by various printing and publishing houses. Being Hungary’s national library, NSZL is supposed to collect each and every edition of publications published in Hungary. At the same time, it also does its best to search for and purchase books published in Hungarian outside Hungary, works by Hungarian authors published in any language, works translated from Hungarian into any language and, last but not least, all the Hungary-related publications.
NSZL also relies heavily on donations and purchase or takeover of heritage, by way of which a whole lot of private collections of outstanding Hungarian figures have reached the Library. To mention just a few and the most notable ones, National Széchényi Library owns the collections of Lajos Kossuth, Imre Madách and Sándor Kisfaludy. It also embraced the libraries of a number of scholars including, for example, renowned linguist Miklós Zsirai. His bequest supplemented the Library’s stock in the field of Finno-Ugric linguistics.
Serving as a museum of Hungarian books, National Széchényi Library keeps the most complete editions of the masters of Hungarian literature and Hungarian scholarship. It holds almost 600 editions of works by Sándor Petőfi and over 3,000 editions of works by Mór Jókai. (Almost 200 Petőfi editions and approximately 600 Jókai editions are in foreign languages.)