Rigby, George S., Jr.

George S. Rigby, Jr., was born on 27 April 1937, and raised in Media, Pennsylvania. He was educated in Media public schools, graduated from Asbury University (1959), and the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, B. Div. (1963) and M. Div. (1972). Rigby was ordained to the United Methodist Church ministry in 1960 and served six churches in eastern Pennsylvania until his retirement in 2002. Since he retired, the Rev. George S. Rigby, Jr., has served as minister-of-visitation for a church in Aston. Pennsylvania. Rigby has had an interest in collecting since childhood. He began collecting holographic material of English and American authors, then in 1980 began to focus on Anthony Trollope, beginning with the purchase of a Trollope autograph letter from the George MacManus Company, Philadelphia, through David Holmes, then head of the latter firm's manuscripts department. Holmes subsequently became an independent antiquarian bookseller. Until his death in 2016, Holmes was the sole source of all the Trollope material in the Rigby Collection. A few items were later purchased from Holmes daughter, Sarah Holmes Bookbinder. Rigby donated the Trollope Collection to the Princeton University Library in 2017 so that it could be "maintained as a unit and preserved in a facility suitable for its care, and in an institution which contained material consonant with [his collection]."

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was born in London and had a long career (1834-67) with the Post Office and traveled widely abroad on missions (Egypt, West Indies, United States). He wrote 47 novels, which included Barchester Towers (1857) in his highly popular "Bartsetshire" series. Trollope also authored several travel books, short stories, biographies, and an autobiography (1875-76) that was published posthumously in 1883.