12/29/2023 0 Comments Book collector heberIt is estimated to have cost over £100,000, and after his death the sale of that part of his collection stored in England realized more than £56,000. To such a size did his library grow that it over-ran eight houses, some in England, some on the Continent. "No gentleman," he remarked, "can be without three copies of a book, one for show, one for use, and one for borrowers." Sir Walter Scott, whose intimate friend he was, and who dedicated to him the sixth canto of Martnion, classed Heber's library as "superior to all others in the world" Campbell described him as "the fiercest and strongest of all the "bibliomaniacs." He did not confine himself to the purchase of a single copy of a work which took his fancy. He attended continental booksales, purchasing sometimes single volumes, sometimes whole libraries. As an undergraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford, he began to collect a purely classical library, but his taste broadening, he became interested in early English drama and literature, and began his wonderful collection of rare books in these departments. Last update of this page: June 26 th 2004 All rights reserved.Matt & Andrej Koymasky - Famous GLTB - Richard Heber Copyright © 2022, Columbia University Press. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Institutional libraries now vie with private collectors for rare books dispersed by auction and through antiquarian bookshops. book collecting on the massive scale practiced by Huntington has declined. The three greatest American book collectors were Henry Clay Folger, John Pierpont Morgan (see under Morgan family), and Henry E. In 1884 Hoe became the first president of the newly founded Grolier Club, a New York-based society dedicated to the appreciation of fine book production. The two most notable collectors of the second half of the century were Henry Huth (1815–78), an Englishman, and Robert Hoe, the first important American collector. first editions of native contemporary literature began to attract book collectors. Richard Heber (1773–1833), whose collection of first editions of literature and history filled several houses, was one of the first collectors to consider contextual factors primary.ĭuring the 19th cent. At first criteria were more visual than literary: early printing, fancy binding, and colorful illumination. collectors shifted their focus from building up libraries to seeking original editions, including incunabula, of earlier works. By the end of the 17th cent., book auctioning was common throughout Europe. The Bodleian Library at Oxford and the Harleian Library of the British Museum were founded respectively on the private collections of Sir Thomas Bodley and Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford. Many early collections became the cornerstones of public libraries. The aim of early collectors, such as Willibald Pirkheimer (1470–1530) and Jean Grolier de Servières, was to assemble personal working libraries. During the Middle Ages monastic institutions were the main accumulators of valuable manuscripts.īook collecting proper began after the invention of movable type (c.1437) and the proliferation of inexpensive books. Contemporary accounts mention personal manuscript collections in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome because manuscript media-scrolls and papyri-were scarce and expensive (and illiteracy general), collecting was confined to religious leaders and heads of state.
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