By Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer

ST. MARTIN - A couple of months ago, Charles A. Norton was upset.

The 82-year-old Colerain Township resident, published writer and scholar of American literary great Mark Twain, was moving. Health problems forced him and his wife of 61 years, Harriet, to relocate to a retirement community.

But what broke his heart was giving up his collection of a lifetime, some 11,000 books of all genres, neatly shelved in his basement. He would no longer have space for the books, so he wanted to find a proper buyer for them.

In an Enquirer article in September, Norton voiced hope his legacy might live on: "The ideal is that there'd be, somewhere, a small college that's just getting a library started."

Two weeks ago, the article about Norton landed on Dolores Barish's desk.

Barish works in the library at Chatfield College, a private, Catholic, liberal arts college in Brown County's St. Martin community. The school, with 500 students and a second campus in North Fairmount, has a library of about 14,000 books.

"The fact he was looking for a small college just struck us," Barish said.

She worked out a deal with Norton to buy, for $10,000, the 10,000 books not related to Mark Twain.

"It's going to help our students incredibly," Barish said

The school will place stickers in each book noting that it's part of the "Charles A. Norton Collection." And Norton agreed to lecture at the college about his favorite subject, Mark Twain, about whom he's written several books.

"It's going to end up being a long-term relationship between our family and the college," said Phil Norton, Charles Norton's son.

E-mail rforgrave@enquirer .com