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12 - Personal owners of books

from PART ONE - THE EXPANSION OF BOOK COLLECTIONS 1640–1750

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Giles Mandelbrote
Edited by
Giles Mandelbrote  and
K. A. Manley
Giles Mandelbrote
Affiliation:
British Library, London
K. A. Manley
Affiliation:
University of London
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Summary

For much of the turbulent decade of the 1680s, a stream of petulant letters flowed, sometimes at the rate of one a week, to the door of the prominent London bookseller Richard Chiswell. Their author, Sir William Boothby (1637–1707), of Ashbourne Hall, Derbyshire, may reasonably be assumed to have been one of Chiswell’s more demanding customers: his letterbooks bear witness in some detail to the formation of one country gentleman’s library, but are perhaps even more remarkable for their strident tone. By turns hectoring and plaintive, Boothby’s letters leave little doubt as to the importance he attached to his books: ‘I would know what of Eminent there is in the presse … I would have the Catalouge of the Library [of Brian Walton, bishop of Chester] which is exposed to sale the 30th instant sent me next week without faile, the news letter mentions a new booke of Dryden … pray send it.’ Boothby’s insistence on being sent the latest pamphlets and newspapers as soon as they became available reflected his profound concern with the political and religious controversies of the day. Constantly anxious that distance from London might lead him to miss out, despite his regular demands for the term catalogues and any other sources of bibliographical news, he turned also to the Lichfield bookseller Michael Johnson: ‘I would know whether you can furnish me constantly weekely with all the printed pamphletts sermons and discourses which come out … but you must be carefull & constant for my greatest pleasure is in bookes – and indeed my busines and I make and keepe collections of all comes out.’

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland , pp. 173 - 189
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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