the book collector
“Sham backs for library doores fitted up in the completest manner”. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
from the eighteenth century is hardly cutting edge – the most recent publication is Tyson’s pioneering study of comparative physiology, The Anatomy of a Pygmy , first published in 1751. The majority of the ‘contemporary’ books were published before 1730 and some at least of this backward-harking seems deliberate. This was the period of the second great wave of bibliophilia. George II’s library had been presented to the nation in 1753, Ames’s Typographical Antiquities had appeared in 1749, and collectors like Askew, West, Crofts and Topham Beauclerk were actively building their libraries. The im- pact of this second wave is not striking at Nostell – the 4th and 5th baronets did not succumb to the trend for collecting incunabula and black letter – but it is apparent in the sham books. Perhaps the most evident example is the inclusion of Higden’s Polycronicon . Conyers Middleton’s Dissertation had been published in 1735, closely fol- lowed by Lewis’s Life of Mayster Wyllyam Caxton, both credited with kick-starting the mania for Caxton. It is notable that the bind- er labeled the Nostell Polycronicon not as Trevisa’s translation of Higden, but as ‘Caxton’s Polychroni’ . The emphasis here is clear.
730
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter