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Journal article
Origins and characteristics of the Japanese Collection in the British Library
THE British Library's antiquarian Japanese collection has long been regarded as one of the finest outside Japan. Its quality and quantity are such that the descriptive catalogue compiled by my predecessor, the late Kenneth Gardner, had to be limited to pre-1700 printed books. Even then, it included 637 items of...Brown, Yu-Ying
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Gandhi and the Indian women's movement
THE acquisition of publications from India in English is the responsibility of the British Library's Overseas English Section, together with the Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), the Science Reference and Information Service (SRIS) and Official Publications and Social Sciences (OP&SS), and over the years material relating to Gandhi's influence...Norvell, Lyn
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A rare Wyndham Lewis pamphlet
IN January 1994 the British Library purchased at auction a copy of Wyndham Lewis's political pamphlet Anglosaxony: A League that Works (shelfmark: Cup.410.f.419.). Published 30 June 1941 in Toronto by the Ryerson Press in an edition of 1500 and priced at 75 cents, 310 copies were sold by February 1944....Egles, James
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The historical importance of the Chinese fragments from Dunhuang in the British Library
THE Dunhuang materials obtained by Sir Aurel Stein during his second and third expeditions were divided between the British Museum, the India Office and the Indian government (this final section now being in the National Museum, New Delhi). However, most of the written material remained in Britain. When the British...Xinjiang, Rong
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'Books with manuscript': the case of Thomas Cranmer's library
THE library of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), though now widely dispersed, is a significant component of one of the main foundation collections of the present British Library - the Old Royal Library. Despite some losses through War damage and the duplicate sales of 1769 to 1819 there are still some 334...Selwyn, David G.
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Journal article
Under the censor's eye: printed almanacs and censorship in ninth-century China
SEVERAL fragmentary printed almanacs dating from the ninth century were among the documents discovered in 1900 in Cave 17 at the 'Thousand Buddha' cave temple site near Dunhuang, north-west China. One fragment, now in the British Library, bears an inscription stating that it was printed in the East Market of...Whitfield, Susan
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Journal article
Two manuscript maps of Nuevo Santander in Northern new Spain from the eighteenth century
IN the eighteenth century, through the occupation of Texas and Alta California and for a time parts of Louisiana and even the western side of Vancouver Island on Nootka Sound, the Spanish Empire in North America and with it Spain's imperial expansion globally attained its greatest geographical extent. After a...Reinhartz, Dennis
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Journal article
Slavery and antislavery in the United States of America
SLAVERY existed on American soil from the colonial period until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Contemporary sources of information about this 'peculiar institution' include slave narratives, journals and tracts published by abolitionist societies, travellers' reports, political speeches, religious sermons, newspaper articles and advertisements, and works of fiction....Kemble, Jean
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: a Shahnama miniature of the fourteenth century
THE Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library has recently acquired an illustrated Shahnama (Book of Kings) (Or.14403) from Transoxiana dating from circa 1600.Titley, Norah M.
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Journal article
A further note on 'asiantos' in Ephraem the Syrian
As a devotee of Ephraem the Syrian I recently read with great interest T. S. Pattie's welcome edition and translation of a tenth-century Greek fragment of the 'Sermo Compunctorius' (CPG 3908) which has traditionally, though probably erroneously, been attributed to St Ephraem. Whilst editing this fragment Pattie noticed that it...Taylor, David G. K.
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Journal article
The young Panizzi
ANTONIO PANIZZI was born on 16 September 1797 in Brescello, a small town at the junction of the Po and the Enza, a town so insignificant that it does not appear at all in the current Michelin guide to Italy. It lies in the fertile, but flat, Lombard plain. The...Foot, M. R. D.
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Journal article
Three modern American acquisitions
THE British Library has recently acquired three rare American items, Mark Twain's Memory Builder, Ezra Pound's A Lume Spento (Cup.410.f918) and John Ashbery's Turandot and Other Poems (YA.1997.b.3915).Digby, Andrew
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Journal article
Watts, Panizzi and Asher: the development of the Russian collections 1837-1869
"No doubt, for many readers it will come as a surprise to learn that, in terms of the completeness and richness of the collections, few libraries in Russia can compete with the Russian Department of the British Museum. In many respects... [it] should be placed higher than any library in...Thomas, Christine ; Henderson, Bob
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Journal article
C. D. Ginsburg and the Shapira Affair: a nineteenth-century Dead Sea Scroll controversy
IN July 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira, a well-known Jerusalem dealer in antiquities and ancient manuscripts, offered to sell a scroll of Deuteronomy to the British Museum, one of his regular customers. Thus began one of the most celebrated incidents in the history of biblical scholarship, a saga that continues more...Reiner, Fred N.
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Journal article
Panizzi, Grenville and the Grenville Library
ANTONIO PANIZZI arrived in England in May 1823 'with not quite a sovereign in his pocket, knowing no one, nor a word of the language' as he was later to write. The liberal attitudes of the English especially regarding political, intellectual and religious tolerance and freedom, so much appreciated by...Reidy, Denis V.
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Journal article
Thomas Jefferys's map of Canada and the mapping of the Western part of North America, 1750-1768
THOMAS JEFFERYS (c. 1710-71), the major English engraver and map publisher of the mid-eighteenth century, is known particularly for the important maps of the eastern half of North America which he produced mainly from the early 1750s and into the 1760s. His maps of Virginia (1753), New Map of Nova...Winearls, Joan
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A supplementary list of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts
THE field of Judaeo-Persian studies is still underdeveloped, as most Judaeo-Persian texts continue to lie buried in uncatalogued collections of manuscripts scattered throughout the world. Although their importance was already recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, and despite the fact that they constitute one of the largest untapped...Moreen, Vera Basch
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Journal article
The book cover designs of John Leighton, F.S.A.
THE chief aim of this article is to identify and describe the signed cover designs by John Leighton on books in the British Library. What follows is a summary of work in progress. This reveals the enormous creativity and versatility of Leighton's cover designs, of which over four hundred have...King, Edmund M. B.
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Journal article
English plague regulations and Italian models: printed and manuscript items in the Yelverton Collection
AMONG the papers of Robert Beale, Clerk to the Privy Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which form the nucleus of the Yelverton collection at the British Library, is a group of printed proclamations and orders of the Governor and other officials of Milan issued at the time...Basing, Patricia ; Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
The Edwards of Halifax Bindery
THE story of the Edwards family of Halifax is the stuff of a Victorian three volume novel. William Edwards (baptized in 1722, died in 1808), a provincial publisher and bookseller, built up a firm which became influential in the book trade in England and abroad. William (1753-86), his first son,...Marks, P. J. M.
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Journal article
Charles II's Hebrew books
THE collection of Hebrew books in the British Library (formerly the Library of the British Museum) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest in the world, and I do not have to expand on its importance, or on the wealth and variety of its manuscripts and printed books. I...Goldstein, David
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Journal article
A Hebrew manuscript of Clavicula Salomonis, Part II
NOWADAYS it is almost a truism to say that there are more and deeper marks of mutual influences between many Christian and Jewish religious traditions of the medieval and early modern period than have long been acknowledged. This is especially true where magic is involved, a branch of knowledge whose...Rohrbacher-Sticker, Claudia
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Notes on the bibliography of Rainerius de Pisis
THE Pantheologia of Rainerius de Pisis, the Dominican who died in 1351, must be one of the longest books ever composed in the Middle Ages. Although the author was an Italian, it is noticeable that of the six editions printed in the fifteenth century the first five appeared in Germany,...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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The dating of Seiber/Adorno papers held by the British Library
THE welcome publication by Nick Chadwick of Matyas Seiber's comments on Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno's jazz research proposal (the 'Expose') of January 1936 and their correspondence during the subsequent writing of Adorno's essay 'On Jazz' ('Uber Jazz') provides valuable insight into their co-operation. Seiber's assistance was publicly acknowledged by Adorno both...Wilcock, Evelyn
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The Panizzi touch: Panizzi's successors as Principal Librarian
BY 1878, Sir Anthony Panizzi was dying. His biographer Edward Miller paints an affecting picture of his condition at that time: "Almost a complete cripple, half blind, he was but the wreck of the magnificent man he had once been. All he could manage was a short drive in the...Prescott, Andrew
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Journal article
John Field: the 'hidden manuscripts' and other sources in the British Library
JOHN Field's manuscripts, both epistolary and musical, are rare, a dozen letters, of which two are in the British Library, and twenty-two autograph manuscripts, of which only the Pastorale in A H.14, Nocturnes nos. 5, 6, and 14, and Concerto no. 7, are complete.Langley, Robin
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Journal article
The printing history of the Constantinople Hebrew incunable of 1493: a mediterranean voyage of discovery
THE place is Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire; the date December 1493. Elia (Elijah), son of Benjamin ha-Levi, is writing the concluding lines to the almost complete edition of Jacob ben Asher's great early fourteenth-century religious compendium Arba'ah Turim ('The Four Rows'), a title referring to the four rows...Offenberg, Adri K.
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Adolphus Asher (1800-1853): Berlin bookseller, Anglophile, and friend to Panizzi
THE London weekly The Athenaeum of 1 October 1853 carried in its gossip column the following brief obituary: "Mr. Adolphus Asher, bookseller of Berlin, whose shop in the Linden Walk was the common rendezvous of literary natives and strangers in that capital, died at Venice on the 2nd of this...Paisey, David
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Journal article
Consort and cupola: Prince Albert, Panizzi and the Reading Room of the British Museum
ON 25 October 1997 the round Reading Room of the British Museum closed its doors to readers for the last time. One hundred and forty years after it was opened Antonio Panizzi most visible achievement ceased to serve the function for which it was erected, as the chief means of...Wright, C. J.
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From Purcell to Wardour Street: a brief account of music manuscripts from the Library of Vincent Novello now in the British Library
In 1986 and 1987 Novello and Company presented to the British Library a substantial collection of scores written or collected by Novello, which had remained in the possession of the company, perhaps since its foundation. These scores joined an already large collection of Novello's material which had found its way...Banks, Chris
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Journal article
Some newly discovered miniatures by Simon Marmion and his workshop
THE late D. H. Turner, Deputy Keeper in the British Library's Department of Manuscripts, besides having a deep interest in liturgical manuscripts, was also the inspiration for Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the British Library. Opening in 1983 in Los Angeles and transferring subsequently to New York and London,...Kren, Thomas
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Journal article
Early printing from Africa in the British Library
ALTHOUGH the date of the introduction of printing to Africa south of the Sahara ranges across the continent from the late eighteenth to late nineteenth century, its development usually followed a similar pattern and in many cases can be traced to the arrival of Christian missionaries. Indigenous literature was predominantly...Holden, Carol
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Journal article
The story of my library
The distinguished Romanian Jewish linguist, literary historian and folklorist Moses Gaster (Bucharest, 1856-London, 1939) assembled an enormous library in his fields of interest and specialization: Hebraica and Judaica, Samaritana, and Romanian and related studies. Gaster's library was divided between a number of institutions over the course of nearly forty years,...Gaster, Moses
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Journal article
A book of cantatas and arias bought in Florence, 1723
THE music manuscript recently acquired by the British Library and now held as Add. S . 71535 is a most valuable specimen of the Italian Baroque tradition so well represented in collections of this country. It could almost be considered an 'English music book'. On the front flyleaf (f. i),...Strohm, Reinhard
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Journal article
The Kubla Khan manuscript and its first collector
COLERIDGE'S Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream, first printed with Christabel and The Pains of-Sleep in 1816, has long been regarded as one of the great literary icons of the Romantic movement. Coleridge's famous account of its conception in the summer or autumn of 1797 - the lonely...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
A marginal sketch in BL, Additional Ms. 25690, the Cronica del Cid Campeador, and the legend of the 'Jura de Santa Gadea'
ADDITIONAL MS. 25690 is a copy of the Cronica del Cid, incomplete at the end and with some dislocation in the sequence of the text. This chronicle circulated in printed editions from 1512. The MS. is briefly described by Gayangos, who assigns it to the fifteenth century and is of...Hook, David
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Journal article
The reconstruction of a burnt Cottonian manuscript: the case of Cotton Ms. Otho A. I
THE manuscript designated 'Otho A. I' in the library formed by Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631) was almost completely destroyed by fire in the early hours of Saturday 23 October 1731. The Cottonian Library, and with it the King's Library, had been removed from Cotton House, in Westminster, to Essex House,...Keynes, Simon
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Journal article
The India Office manuscript of Maimonides's Guide: the earliest complete copy in the Judaeo-Arabic original
AMONG the rich holdings of the India Office Library there exists but a single manuscript in Hebrew characters, I.O.M. MS. 3679. However, this manuscript, a beautifully executed copy of Moses Maimonides's Dalalat al-Ha'irin (Guide of the Perplexed), is both aesthetically remarkable and of no little scholarly interest. It is the...Langermann, V. Tzvi
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Public relations, Panizzi-style
IN a collection of letters by and to Sir Anthony Panizzi, chiefly relating to the history of the British Museum, assembled and recently presented by the author to the British Library (Add. MSS. 70839-70854), are two letters written by Sir Anthony to the Irish essayist and politician John Wilson Croker...McCrimmon, Barbara
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Journal article
Benjamin Franklin and the snake that would not die
ON 9 May 1754 an article was published in Benjamin Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, calling for the British colonies on North America's eastern seaboard to unite against the threat of French aggression from the western interior. This rousing exhortation was echoed by an accompanying illustration depicting the British colonies...Cook, Karen Severud
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Journal article
An early map on skin of the area later to become Indiana and Illinois
THE British Museum's Department of Ethnography, presently at the Museum of Mankind, London, has on permanent loan a large map made on skin (Plate VII and fig. 2). Centred on the long axis of a diagrammatically straightened Wabash River, when redrawn on a modern map it covers most of what...Lewis, G. Malcolm
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Journal article
A new English keyboard manuscript of the seventeenth century: autograph music by Draghi and Purcell
MILLENNIAL fever seems to have infected even the sober arena of musicology and music manuscripts. We have heard the cry of 'Musicological Event of the Century' too frequently in recent years, trumpeting everything from the discovery of the autograph of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor (K. 457 and...Hogwood, Christopher
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Journal article
The works of Paolo Angelo
NOTHING seems to be recorded about the life of Paolo Angelo, except for the meagre scraps of information which his own books reveal. He was a humble priest of Venice, apparently a member of the Dominican Order, and he had a fanatical hatred of Luther and his doctrines, which he...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
Jaspar Gryffyth and his books
THE great collectors of manuscripts in Britain during the century following the dissolution of the monasteries, men such as Parker, Dee, Cotton, and Lumley, were figures, by and large, of some standing in church or state, with the means and opportunity to amass large numbers of manuscript books and other...Ovenden, Richard
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Journal article
Mátyás Seiber's collaboration in Adorno's jazz project, 1936
IN 1982 the British Library acquired the papers of the Hungarian-born composer Matyas Seiber (1905-60) through the generosity of his widow, Mrs Lilla Seiber. This large collection contains not only sketches and scores of Seiber's musical works but also scripts for lectures and broadcast talks on a variety of musical...Chadwick, Nick
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Journal article
Some drafts by Richard Steele for The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian
WITH the transfer of the Blenheim Papers to the British Library in 1978, a large body of Sir Richard Steele's letters and literary manuscripts became more easily available for examination by scholars. They are now bound as Add. MSS. 61686-61688, most of the literary material being gathered in the last...Lindsay, Alexander
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Journal article
'The art of dancing, demonstrated by characters and figures': French and English sources for court and theatre dance, 1700-1750
IN 1700 Raoul Auger Feuillet published in Paris Choregraphie ou Part de de'crire la dance, and revolutionized the art of dancing. His treatise made available, for the first time, a system of notation whereby dances could be recorded in symbols - allowing them to be recreated at other times and...Goff, Moira
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Journal article
'A very common and usuall trade': the relationship between cartographic perceptions and 'fishing' in the Davis Strait circa 1500-1550
FROM the time it was certain that one could sail westwards from Europe and reach land on the other side of the ocean, three kinds of European travellers headed west into the northern Atlantic: those searching for a north-west passage to the spices and silks of the Orient through what...Seaver, Kirsten A.
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Journal article
Yiddish manuscripts in the British Library
FEW Yiddish manuscripts predating the age of printing have survived the storms of Jewish and general history. The oldest extant dated Yiddish document is a rhymed inscription of a dozen words in the Worms Mahzor ('festival liturgy') of 1272, now in the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. By far...Prager, Leonard ; Hill, Brad Sabin