James Lenox

James Lenox
Photograph taken in the 1870s
Born	August 19, 1800 New York City
Died	February 17, 1880 (aged 79)
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James Lenox (19 August 1800 – 17 February 1880) was an American bibliophile and philanthropist. His collection of paintings and books eventually became known as the Lenox Library and later became part of the New York Public Library in 1895.

He was born in New York City, the only son of Robert Lenox, a wealthy Scottish merchant of New York, from whom he inherited a fortune of several million dollars and 30 acres of land between Fourth and Fifth Avenues in 1839. A graduate of Columbia College, he studied law and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced. He retired from business when his father died.

He went to Europe soon after his admission to the bar, and while abroad began collecting rare books, which, along with collecting art, became the absorbing passion of his life. For half a century, he devoted the greater part of his time and talent to forming a library and gallery of paintings not surpassed in value by any private collection in the New World. These, together with many rare manuscripts, marble busts and statues, mosaics, engravings, and curios, became the Lenox Library in 1870 in New York City.

The library occupied the crest of the hill on Fifth Avenue, between 70th and 71st Streets, overlooking Central Park. On 23 May 1895, the Lenox Library was consolidated with the Astor Library and the Tilden Trust to form the New York Public Library.

The collection of Bibles, including the Mazarin, both as to number and rarity, was believed to be unequalled even by those in the British Museum, while its Americana, incunabula, and Shakespeariana surpassed those of any other American library, public or private. The collection was valued at nearly a million dollars, which, with the $900,000 for the land and building and the endowment, made a total of above $2,000,000. The Frick Collection stands on the Lenox Library's former site.