the invention of rare books
du livres first appeared in 1810 and in its final much-revised and supplemented edition (1860–5) is the only one of all those earlier works whose comments on rarity are still occasionally quoted by booksellers today (at least by those who can find nothing else to say . Maggs currently quote his assessment of a 1545 Estienne Lucan: ‘Bonne édition, peu commune’) McKitterick’s concentration on trade and auction catalogues gives a somewhat unbalanced view of the 200 years he covers as only those libraries dispersed in the period tend to be discussed. Hence there is no mention of the extraordinary recently-dispersed library at Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire that had been created by two suc- cessive Earls of Macclesfield in the eighteenth century which, with its emphasis on scientific books of all periods, was distinguished from most private libraries formed at the time. The large library of mostly post-1660 books formed on universal enyclopedist princi- ples by George II’s wife Queen Caroline in the second quarter of the century is not mentioned either, while the great libraries formed by the sixth Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth and the second Earl Spencer at Althorp merit only passing references. The bibliophily of Queen Caroline extended beyond her court into literary patronage and an intellectual salon while the bibliomania of King George III had a great e V ect on competition for incunabula and early English books and, hence, on auction prices. Where their interests led, others in high society, or aiming to be there, would often follow and so on down the line. Later royal generations would have similar e V ects on game-shooting and horse-racing. Queen Caroline’s library makes us realise what a male world it was that McKitterick describes. The index includes only three women with even passing mentions: Katherine Bridgeman whose ‘books included little of value … [so] were listed with as little expense as possible’ in Cock’s auction catalogue of February 1741/2; Catherine de Medicis because she received a specially-bound large paper dedication copy of Jacques Bassantin’s Astronomique discours (Lyon, 1557) and other elaborate bindings; and Elizabeth-Jane Weston because she wrote a Latin poem in praise of printing. Although McKitterick’s title promises to cover the years 1600–1840 it is only on reaching the conclusion that the reader will
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