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Journal article
A leaf from a Gutenberg Bible illuminated in England
OLD libraries, even those with a great tradition in providing information of a high standard, may sometimes benefit from visitors who insist on not confining themselves to what is listed or catalogued, although the outcome will frequently be - to the annoyance of all concerned - that the search was...König, Eberhard
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Book
Catalogue of the Pāli printed books in the India Office Library
The present catalogue includes all the Pali texts and translations from the Pali, whether in Sinhalese, Burmese, Devanagari, Thai, Bengali or romanised scripts, held by the India Office Library. (Burmese nissaya books, Pali texts in which each phrase is followed by its Burmese translation, are included in a separate catalogue...Raper, T. C. H.
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Journal article
A new portrait of George Eliot?
FOR an author who was at once both lionized in some quarters, and despised in others, it is remarkable that descriptions of George Eliot's appearance are so much at variance. On one hand is the unkind, but memorable yet still unattributed line, 'Have you seen a horse, sir? Then you...Goldman, Paul
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Journal article
An unidentified Italian publisher's device: the knight on oxback
IN November 1891 the British Museum bought from Leo S. Olschki, the bookseller who was at that time established in Venice but later moved to Florence, a small liturgical work in 16mo format without imprint or date, and with the title printed in red as follows (abbreviations resolved): Diurnum Romanum:...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
The Blenheim Papers
THE papers of John, 1st Duke of Marlborough, his wife, Sarah, and his son-in-law, Charles 3rd Earl of Sunderland, as well as of other members of the Spencer, Churchill, and related families, formerly kept at Blenheim Palace, were acquired by the British Library in 1978. They were originally offered to...Hudson, J. P.
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Journal article
'This so-called autobiography': Anthony Trollope, 1812-1882
'THERE is perhaps no career of life so charming as that of a successful man of letters', Trollope declares in a happy moment, adding that 'it is in the consideration which he enjoys that the successful author finds his richest reward.' A good deal of the interest and fascination of...Brown, Sally
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Journal article
Socinian books with the Raków imprint in the British Library
DURING the Reformation, Poland, with her religious tolerance, became known as an asylum haereticorum in which various trends in the New Faith peacefully coexisted with the official Catholic Church, and religious refugees from abroad found safety from persecution by both the Inquisition and Protestant theologians. One of the most distinguished...Swiderska, H.
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Journal article
Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge
AT the very northernmost border of Westmorland, a couple of miles before the train enters Penrith station from the south, the observant traveller will be struck by the appearance, immediately to the left of the embankment, of a large farmhouse dominated by a fine fourteenth-century peel-tower, built in the traditional...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions January-December 1980
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions January-December 1980.Smith, Robert A. H.
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Journal article
'A pleasing example of skill in old age': Sir Christopher Wren and Marlborough House
THE lease of the site of what was to become Marlborough House was first granted to the Duke of Marlborough by the Crown in 1708. The Duke left the whole matter of the projected town house to his Duchess, so the choice of architect was hers. In her own words:...Searle, Arthur
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Journal article
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1981- March 1982: English Books 1501-1800
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1981-March 1982: English Books 1501-1800.Archibald, Jean ; Jannetta, M. J.
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Journal article
Antoine De Guiscard, 'Abbé de la Bourlie', 'Marquis de Guiscard'
SOME wars more than others offer scope to the hopeful military adventurer armed with plausible projects. The chevalier d'industrie flourished mightily in the War of the Spanish Succession, as the papers of the 1st Duke of Marlborough reveal. The imagination of the military projector was admirably stimulated by the obstacles...Jones, Peter
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Journal article
Rembertus Fresen and his writings
THREE small books in the British Library, all printed in northern Germany towards the end of the sixteenth century, are of unusual interest both for their author and for their printers. Unfortunately it has to be confessed that all three were accidentally omitted from the British Museum's Short-title Catalogue of....Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
Swift, Oxford, and the composition of Queen's speeches, 1710-1714
SWIFT'S involvement in the composition of Queen's speeches during the years of the Oxford ministry is almost a commonplace of his biography, and statements in the Journal to Stella provide the evidence for his importance in government circles. 'I was at Court, where every body had their Birthday Cloaths on,...Downie, J. A. ; Woolley, David
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Printed Books: Dutch acquisitions
Recent acquisitions: Department of Printed Books: Dutch acquisitions.Simoni, Anna E. C.
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Journal article
Accounts of the conduct of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 1704-1742
SARAH, Duchess of Marlborough's self-justifying narrative of her years at Court, An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough attracted a considerable amount of attention at its first publication in 1742, and has since frequently been used as an historical source. For not only had she been...Harris, Frances
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Journal article
The raid on Raglan: sacred ground and profane curiosity
". . . and therefore I call this a Semi Omnipotent Engine, and do intend that a model thereof be buried with me." EDWARD Somerset, 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester (1601-67) is one of the best known of his resilient family, both for his part in the Civil...Hewish, John
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Journal article
Marlborough as Imperial Prince, 1704-1717
EARLY in June 1704, as the campaign that was to culminate in the victory of Blenheim-Hochstadt was gaining momentum, Johann Wenzel, Count Wratislaw von Mitrowitz, the Imperial ambassador at the English court, who was accompanying the Allied armies on their march to the Danube, suggested in a confidential letter to...Barber, Peter
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Journal article
Some unpublished correspondence of Sir Richard Steele
IN its January issue of 1782, the Gentleman's Magazine carried amongst its obituaries the following item: 'January 1st . . . In the Circus, Bath, the right hon. Lady Trevor, relict of John Lord Trevor, and dau. of the late Sir Richard Steele'. The story of the Steele Family, it...Wright, C. J.
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Journal article
An early thirteenth-century Low Countries booklist
IN British Library MS. Harley 2720, a copy of the Thebaid of Statius, at the bottom right hand corner of fol. 85v, the last page of the text, is a list of twenty-four or twenty-five titles of books or shorter works and four items associated with writing (wax, a seal,...Watson, Andrew G.
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Journal article
The acquisitions system of the Department of Printed Books in the 1870s
PANIZZI'S years as Keeper (1837-56) were the revolutionary period in the history of the Department of Printed Books. After such a turbulent time consolidation was needed and this was provided first by John Winter Jones who was Keeper from 1856 to 1866. His successor was Thomas Watts, a man of...Harris, P. R.
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Journal article
Paul Hirsch and his music library
ON 16 July 1946 the lovely garden of 10 Adams Road, Cambridge, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hirsch, was the scene of a party given for the seventieth birthday of Edward Dent, who had been Professor of Music in the University from 1926 to 1941. It was a...King, Alec Hyatt
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Journal article
The Poppelauer catalogues of Hebraica and Judaica
THE Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books has been fortunate enough to acquire a unique and almost complete set of the Catalogues of Hebraica and Judaica issued by M. Poppelauer of Berlin between 1887 and 1929. Twenty-seven catalogues were issued, and the only (but important) one missing from the...Goldstein, David
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Journal article
A purchase of books in 1615
WHILE making a study of manuscript annotations and marks of provenance in English incunabula for the forthcoming volume of B.M.C. xi, I was pleasantly surprised to come upon a priced list of twenty-three books, transcribed below, in a copy of the English translation of Cicero's De Senectute printed by Caxton...Nickson, M. A. E.
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Journal article
A reappraisal of the Bedford Hours
ALREADY well known to bibliophiles at the time of its purchase in February 1852, the Bedford Hours has ever since been justifiably regarded as one of the star attractions of the national collection. Some of its illustrations, especially the lively miniatures of Noah's Ark, have become famous through frequent reproduction...Backhouse, Janet
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Journal article
Two new Italian printing centres of the sixteenth century
IN April 1980 the Department of Printed Books bought two extremely rare books, each of which adds a new town to our already very rich collection of sixteenth-century Italian imprints. While these books are not unrecorded, it is most unlikely that a copy of either of them has ever previously...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
The Lumley Library: a supplementary checklist
THE notes that follow relate to some eighty-nine printed books and manuscripts from the collection of John, Lord Lumley (1534-1609), on which new information has become available since the publication in 1956 by Sears Jayne and Francis Johnson of the 1609 Catalogue of the Lumley Library from a manuscript in...Selwyn, D. G.
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Journal article
A Shahnama from Transoxiana
THE Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books has recently acquired an unusual, and stylistically rare, illustrated copy of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) by Firdawsi (Or. 13859). The latter part of the manuscript, which might have included a colophon, is missing but the miniatures appear to be in the...Titley, Norah M.
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Journal article
Some notes on seventeenth-century continental hospitals
SIR HANS SLOANE (1660-1753), the eminent Stuart and Georgian physician, was an avid collector of historical manuscripts, particularly those relating to all branches of medicine and the allied sciences. His collection, an original nucleus of the British Museum, remains one of the most important archives for research into the medical...Alsop, J. D.
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Journal article
The paint surfaces in the Psalter of Henry of Blois
THE condition of the miniatures in the Psalter of Henry of Blois, British Library MS. Cotton Nero C. IV, has long been a subject of interest to students of Romanesque illumination. Those who have commented upon this problem agreed that originally the miniatures were fully painted. At some point, the...Haney, Kristine Edmondson
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Journal article
The General Catalogue of printed books, 1881-1981
ON 30 April 1881 George Bullen, the Keeper of Printed Books, laid before the Trustees of the British Museum the first printed part of the catalogue of books in his department. When completed twenty-five years later, the catalogue, containing about two million entries, became and remained for half a century...Chaplin, A. H.
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Journal article
Note: The Spanish Scala Celi
The Scala celi in Spanish, in the edition with which I am here concerned, is a small printed work of only twenty quarto leaves. It has nothing whatever to do with much longer works of the same title (but in Latin) with which it has been confused. Haebler, for example,...Rhodes, D. E.
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Printed Books: Acquisitions 1975-1980: English Books 1501-1800
Recent acquisitions: Department of Printed Books: Acquisitions 1975-1980: English Books 1501-1800.Archibald, Jean ; Jannetta, M. J.
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: Add. MS. acquisitions, January-December 1979; Egerton MS. and Add. Ch.acquisitions, January 1978-December 1979
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: Add. MS. acquisitions, January-December 1979; Egerton MS. and Add. Ch. acquisitions, January 1978-December 1979. -
Journal article
The Dropmore Papers (ADD. MSS. 58855-59494)
WILLIAM WYNDHAM, Baron Grenville (1759-1834), Prime Minister from 1806 to 1807 and earlier, from 1791 to 1801, Foreign Secretary under Pitt the Younger, left on his death over 300 portfolios of letters and papers and over 150 letter- and précis-books, the fruits of a public career of some fifty years....Smith, Robert A. H.
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Journal article
The Olga Hirsch collection of decorated papers
In 1962 Mrs. Olga Hirsch, the widow of Paul Hirsch the celebrated music collector, bequeathed to the British Library her collection of decorated papers, consisting of over 3,500 sheets of paper and about 130 books in paper wrappers or with decorated endpapers, as well as her eminently useful small reference...Foot, Mirjam M.
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Journal article
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1980-1981: English Books 1501-1800
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1980-1981: English Books 1501-1800.Archibald, Jean ; Jannetta, M. J.
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Journal article
Books from Japanese circulating libraries in the British Library
Over the last ten years there has been in Japan a steady growth of interest in the circulating libraries known as kashihonya and in due course this bids fair to make a valuable contribution to the study of the rise of literacy in Japan in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). Some...Kornicki, P. F.
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Journal article
A new account of Waterloo: a letter home from Private George Hemingway of the Thirty-third Regiment of Foot
ACCOUNTS by participants of the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo are not numerous and most of those written by British ones were elicited some twenty years after the event by the questionnaire of the enterprising Captain Siborne. Surviving accounts of Waterloo written by private soldiers must be very rare...Waley, Daniel
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Journal article
The Ayrton Papers: music in London, 1786-1858
RECENTLY acquired papers of William Ayrton (1777-1858), musician and critic, sometime Director of the Italian opera at the King's Theatre, and editor of the Harmonicon, proved to be the residue of the collection of Ayrton's correspondence and papers presented by Miss Phyllis Ayrton, his great-granddaughter, in 1964. The new collection...Willetts, Pamela
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Journal article
Bookbinding practices of the Hering family, 1794-1844
THE English poet and essayist Robert Southey, describing, in the guise of a Spaniard, the manners and morals of his countrymen, noted in 1807, that 'there is, perhaps, no country in which the passion for collecting rarities is so prevalent as in England.' This passion was turned by large numbers...Marks, Judith Goldstein
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Journal article
Four Strasburg incunables incorrectly assigned to Anton Koberger of Nuremberg
Four incunables, undated and anonymous as to place and printer, have for many generations been assigned to the Nuremberg press of Anton Koberger, and have in fact been classed as his very earliest productions. 1. Johannes Nider, Manuale confessorum. fol.: a-e10 f8, 58 leaves. Hain, *11834; Goff, N-178; Proctor, 1961;...Needham, Paul
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Department of Printed Books: acquisitions from the Broxbourne Library
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions from the Broxbourne Library. -
Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books: manuscript acquisitions, 1975
Recent acquisitions: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books: manuscript acquisitions, 1975. -
Journal article
The Department of Manuscripts' George Eliot Holdings
'MR. LEWES had set his mind on their going after our death to the British Museum', wrote George Eliot of the manuscripts of her works in a letter to William Blackwood. In G. H. Lewes's lifetime the autograph manuscripts of her works had been inscribed and presented by her to...Waley, Daniel
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1978
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1978. -
Journal article
Vignettes in early nineteenth-century London editions of Mozart's operas
ON 21 June 1737 the royal assent was given to a measure entitled: An Act to explain and amend so much of an Act, made in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of Queen Anne, intituled, An Act for reducing the Laws relating to Rogues, Vagabonds, sturdy Beggars, and Vagrants,...King, Alec Hyatt
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Journal article
Joaquin Ibarra, 1725-1785: a tentative list of holdings in the reference division of the British Library
THREE printers in eighteenth-century Spain are commonly regarded as the leaders of the revival in printing standards in that country. Of the three, Joaquin Ibarra, Benito Monfort, and Antonio de Sancha, it is Ibarra who is generally considered to be pre-eminent.Whitehead, H. G.
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Journal article
Woodcroft's heritage: the collections at the Science Reference Library
ANY considerable library has a character all its own, a character usually reflecting the disproportionate influence of a few outstanding men who have shaped its development. The Science Reference Library, which celebrated its 125th anniversary on 5 March 1980, is no exception for, primus inter pares, it is the library...Hall, R. M. S.
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Journal article
A hitherto unrecognized Cavalier dramatist: James Compton, Third Earl of Northampton
ON 8 March 1978 there was offered for sale at Christie's, as lot 293, a large collection originating from Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire of plays and other writings in manuscript that had largely been lost sight of since Thomas Percy, the literary historian and editor of the Reliques of Ancient...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
Reflections on librarianship: observations arising from examination of the Garrick Collection of old plays in the British Library
IN April 1980 it will be two hundred years since David Garrick's Collection of Old Plays was transferred from his house in the Adelphi to the British Museum. On a hand cart, so it is said, the volumes in their special binding, with the initials DG entwined on the spines,...Anderson, Dorothy
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Journal article
The early catalogues of the Cottonian Library
IN spite of the importance of the Cottonian library for a wide range of literary and historical studies we know very little about its organization and development in the first century of its existence. While its unique value was widely recognized long before the death of its founder, Sir Robert...Tite, Colin G. C.
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Journal article
Department of Printed Books: Halthasar Bekker: some recent additions
In the 1978 Spring issue of this journal Dr. Hans Henning recalled that executions for witchcraft continued in Germany and Switzerland until 1782. If they came to an end then, and well before that date in England and some other countries, this is due in no small measure to Balthasar...Simoni, Anna E. C.
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Journal article
Innocence and experience in the poetry of Andrew Marvell
ANDREW MARVELL is the most enigmatic of English writers. Aubrey tells us that he was merry and cherry-cheeked, but that he would not drink in company, keeping, nevertheless, some bottles of wine in his lodgings 'to refresh his spirits and exalt his muse'. Nearly all the poems on which his...Lord, George De F.
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Journal article
Joseph Timothy Haydn, of Dictionary of Dates fame: 'a long and laborious life, writing chiefly for the publishers'
'Is it for this', Robert Hurton's melancholy scholar asks, 'we rise so early all the year long, leaping (as he saith) out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we heard a thunderclap? If this be all the respect, reward, and honour we shall have ....Myers, Robin
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Journal article
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions, Slavonic Division
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions, Slavonic Division.Chrastek, D. B.
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Recent acquisitions: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books: manuscript acquisitions 1974
Recent acquisitions: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books: manuscript acquisitions 1974. -
Journal article
Reconstruction of a Liège psalter-hours
IN the sad history of crimes against books, British Library Add. MS. 28784 must be placed high on the list of scrapbooks headed by the Carmelite Missal, Add. MSS. 29704-29705. When acquired by the British Museum in 1871 Add. MS. 28784 was composed of a complete late fifteenth-century book of...Oliver, Judith
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Journal article
Gladstone and Panizzi
THERE were several strands in Gladstone's relation with Panizzi, whom he came to call this very true, trusty, hearty friend. Panizzi made his English debut in the 1820s in Liverpool, where John Gladstone was a merchant prince, and he made it under the patronage of William Ewart the future Prime...Foot, M. R. D.
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Journal article
Panizzi and Madden
IN a publication celebrating Antonio Panizzi's centenary, an article on his dealings with his mortal enemy, Sir Frederic Madden, the Keeper of Manuscripts, might seem to strike a jarring note. They nevertheless make a tale well worth the telling. The epic feud between these two great public servants is a...Borrie, Michael
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Journal article
Some uncollected letters of Andrew Marvell
EARLIER this year the British Library acquired an unpublished letter of Marvell to Sir Henry Thompson of Escrick, dated 16 December 1675. Sir Henry (c. 1627-84), the second of the five sons of Richard Thompson of Kilham and his wife Anne Thompson, nee Nelthorpe, was a successful wine merchant, knighted...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
Notes : The Laurence Nowell Manuscripts in the British Library
For centuries historians have asserted that the Laurence Nowell who transcribed old chronicles with William Lambarde, the sixteenth-century antiquary of Kent, was a churchman, the Dean of Lichfield. A careful reading of the facts in a 1571 Court of Requests case has recently disclosed that this belief is unfounded.Warnicke, Retha M.
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Notes: Richard Hodges and Stowe Manuscript 15
This note is intended to explain the relationship between Stowe Manuscript 15 and Richard Hodges, whose name appears on folio 12v with the date 1545. The manuscript is a small volume of ninety-two vellum folios containing diverse subjects dating from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. It was originally begun...Alsop, J. D.
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Journal article
Some hitherto unpublished Panizziana from Italy
THE municipal library in the quiet and elegant city of Reggio Emilia is a hitherto unexplored treasure house of unpublished Panizzi material. It was at Reggio that Antonio Panizzi spent four years at the ginnasio and met Gaetano Fratuzzi, the retired Professor of Rhetoric and librarian at that library, who...Reidy, Denis V.
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Journal article
Antonio Panizzi and the British Museum
ANTONIO GENESIO MARIA PANIZZI was born on 16 September 1797 in the little town of Brescello in the Duchy of Modena in northern Italy. Though no more than the son of the local chemist, he had received a sound education, in Brescello itself, in Reggio, and at the University of...Miller, Edward
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Journal article
Two eighteenth-century manuscripts on the geography of the Levant
A MANUSCRIPT on my bookshelves contains a collection of geographical and other notes relating to Greece and Asia Minor. It has no title, and is unsigned. It was written during a period of years beginning before 1739, probably before 1733, and continuing at least until 1749. Among its contents are...Salt, George
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Journal article
Department of Printed Books: German popular literature as seen in some recent antiquarian acquisitions
Systematic acquisition of foreign literature for the British Museum library began in 1834 with regular Government funding, and, particularly under Panizzi, the attention paid to current material was extended also to supplementing the existing holdings of older books on as wide a scale as possible. His declared aim to make...Paisey, D. L.
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Journal article
A side-light on Panizzi in the letters of Prosper Mérimée
THIS is an attempt to break into a patch of silence and a zone of half-light in the later years of Sir Anthony Panizzi. The silence and obscurity are the result of a historical accident. The bulk of Panizzi's papers and correspondence has been preserved - it is available now...Brodhurst, Audrey C.
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Journal article
NOTE: William Godwin's 'Damon and Delia'
The British Library has recently acquired this early novel by William Godwin of which no copy was hitherto known to be extant. It is known that Godwin wrote three novels in 1783-4; his manuscript autobiographical notes, quoted by C. Kegan Paul in William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries (1876), record...Archibald, Jean
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Journal article
Recent acquisitions: Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1968-1978, Map Library
Between 1968 and 1978 the Map Library has acquired a number of important and unusual atlases, maps, and globes dating from c. 1500 to 1850. Although all acquisitions are entered in the published Map Catalogue and in its subsequent accessions parts, this article provides fuller descriptions of some of the...Tyacke, Sarah ; Wallis, Helen
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Journal article
Notes: Nicolaus Falcutius and Nicolaus Nicoli
Nicolaus Falcutius, or Falcuccius (Niccolo Falcucci) must be the one medieval author who holds the record for having been wrongly catalogued in the largest number of modern European libraries. In the hope that he may be correctly catalogued in the future, I will here list the printed editions of his...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English Books 1701-1800
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English Books 1701-1800.Jannetta, M. J.
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Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1977
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1977 -
Journal article
A Khamsa of Nizami dated Herat, 1421
THE Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books has recently acquired a Persian manuscript (Or. 13802) dated Herat, 824 (1421), which is illustrated by miniatures of considerable interest and importance, both stylistically and historically. The work consists of 794 folios containing the five poems (Khamsa) of Nizami (d. 1203) written...Titley, Norah M.
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Journal article
John Webber's South Sea drawings for the admiralty: a newly discovered catalogue among the papers of Sir Joseph Banks
THE Department of Manuscripts in the British Library, a treasure-house of many little-known works of art which one might not expect to find there, preserves more than 150 drawings and water-colours by the British artist John Webber (1750-93). The late Martin Hardie, a connoisseur of the British water-colour school, praised...Joppien, Rudiger
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Journal article
Some notes on Andrew Marvell : Marvell before and after the continental tour 1642 and 1647
THE precise limits of Marvell's four-year tour of the Continent during the 1640s, attested in Milton's letter to Bradshaw of February 1653 and in poems such as 'Fleckno, an English Priest at Rome', have been the subject of much speculation. Thanks to Mrs Burdon's article in the previous number of...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
Pictorial printing in Chinese books: three examples from the seventeenth century
CHINA, the country of origin of both paper and the printed word, was also the first to print book illustrations. However, it is the Japanese achievement in this field that has captured the imagination of the outside world, as was so eloquently and reflectively demonstrated by my colleague David Chibbett,...Brown, Yu-Ying
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Journal article
Marvell after Cambridge
MARVELL'S movements on first leaving Cambridge have never been known to his biographers. Exactly when he left Trinity College is also in doubt, but it is clear that by September 1641 he had been absent for an unacceptable length of time. If it is a fact that he ran away...Burdon, Pauline
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Journal article
Some early English editions of Voltaire
ON Friday 10 May 1726 it would seem that Voltaire left Calais in the Betty to cross the Channel by the regular service and to arrive the following morning, 30 April, at Gravesend. The shift from Gregorian to Julian calendars, only removed by England's adoption of New Style some twenty-six...Barber, G.
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Journal article
David Hume, De Unione Tractatus Secundus
THE description of MS. Royal, 12 A.53 in the British Library catalogue states that 'it does not appear to have been printed'. Indeed it was not; but two letters in the Public Record Office indicate that it did very nearly achieve publication in France in 1610, some five years after...Lindley, David
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Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English books 1641-1700
Department of Printed Books: acquisitions 1965-1975: English books 1641-1700Jannetta, M. J.
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Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1976
Recent acquisitions: Department of Manuscripts: acquisitions, January-December 1976 -
Journal article
An addition to the Faust literature: an unknown 'harrowing of hell' in the British Library, London
THE spread of material on the subject of Faust began in the sixteenth century with the existence of Faust as an historical figure, and with the appearance of a 'Faust-trilogy' (Faust-Buch of 1587, Wagner-Buch of 1593, Fausts Gaukeltasche of 1607). The subject entered English literature with an English version of...Henning, Dr. Hans
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Journal article
The artist of the Leviathan title-page
FEW title-page designs, if any, can rival the success of that bluntly eloquent engraving which prefaces the first edition (1651) of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Though it was re-used for two further editions in the author's own lifetime, successive reproductions have given it far wider currency since its reappearance in the...Brown, Keith
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Notes: Italian printed statutes: a correction
In my recent brief account of the printed Italian statutes in the British Library, I made one misleading statement when I failed to mention the statutes of the Duchy of Savoy, of which the Library has three editions printed before 1600. I wrote: 'It will be noted that certain important...Rhodes, D. E.
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Journal article
Hilarius Cantiuncula and his book of poems
THE present brief investigation arose out of the discovery of an unfortunate error in the British Museum's Short-title Catalogue of Italian Books 1463-1600 (1958), where on page 327 we read the following entry: 'Hilarius, a writer of Latin verse in Germany. Cantiunculae hendecasyllaborum liber. Apud P. Petramsanctam: [Gualtiero Scotto:] Venetijs,...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Learning to read: Friedrich Gedike's primer of 1791
IN a culture still as firmly based as ours on written language, it is hardly possible to overestimate the importance to the individual and to society of the skill of reading. It gives a degree of power, through access to recorded information, from the simple signals of everyday life to...Paisey, David
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Journal article
Patrick Cary: a sequel
To place the recently acquired manuscript of Italian poems attributed to Patrick Cary more exactly in context and to dispel any doubts concerning his authorship I should like to bring together some scattered information. I should also like to discuss further sources regarding the last few years of his life.Willetts, Pamela
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Journal article
Pietro Bembo's L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde
THE third volume of Giovanni Battista Ramusio's Delle Navigationi et Viaggi was first published in Venice by Giunti in 1556.' It included an account of the first Spanish descent to the River Amazon made during 1542. This account was written by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdes (1478-1557), and sent...Norvell, Lyn
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Notes on some manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes
IN one of the scrap-books of the notorious collector John Bagford (1650-1716), which are now part of the Harleian collection, is preserved a hitherto unnoticed leaf from a manuscript of Thomas Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes. It is a single parchment leaf (Fragment 90, MS. Harley 5977), mounted on a guard,...Green, R. F.
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Journal article
Notes: An unknown Mendelssohn autograph
Two volumes of music which once belonged to Queen Victoria have recently been acquired and reunited with the Royal Music Library. They are uniformly bound in half morocco with marbled boards. This simple style had been widely popular for music since the late eighteenth century. As usual, a label on...Neighbour, O. W.
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Journal article
The Codex Sinaiticus
THE Codex Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible, even though it has lost over 300 leaves, is still the earliest complete New Testament, and is the earliest and best witness for some of the books of the Old Testament. It was written in the first half of the fourth century, when...Pattie, T. S.
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Journal article
Italian City and regional statutes 1473-1600, in the British Library
WITH the purchase in September 1974 of the printed statutes of Bologna, a book which was completed shortly after 28 February 1475, the British Library increases its holdings of the products of the first press in Bologna, that of Baldassare Azzoguidi, from fourteen to fifteen out of a total of...Rhodes, Dennis E.
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Journal article
Brother and sister: new George Eliot letters
ON 20 July 1854 Mary Ann Evans, who two and a half years later was to assume the nom de plume George Eliot, left London for an excursion to Germany in the company of George Henry Lewes, and henceforward until his death they lived together as man and wife. She...Burnett, T. A. J.
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Journal article
Additional Sheridan papers: Add.MSS. 58274-58277
A QUANTITY of political papers, mostly speech notes, and miscellanea of Richard Brinsley Sheridan have recently been added to the Department of Manuscripts' holdings of Sheridan family material. The new acquisition had once been part of the Sheridan papers preserved at Frampton Court, Dorset, and had been sold by auction...Smith, R. A. H.
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Journal article
A Shakespeare allusion of 1605 and its author
SURPRISINGLY few critical notices of Shakespeare have so far been recovered from sources dating from his own lifetime; fewer than a dozen are known to survive, and all of these originate from more or less professional literary circles. The most famous is the schoolmaster Francis Meres's comment in Palladis Tamia...Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
The Malory manuscript
IN March 1976 the British Library purchased from the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College the famous manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's English cycle of Arthurian tales, now numbered Additional MS. 59678. Almost immediately upon transfer to its new home the manuscript went on display in the Caxton quincentenary exhibition,...Hellinga, Lotte ; Kelliher, Hilton
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Journal article
Two Stanley Spencer letters from Salonika
THE most memorable experience which twentieth-century British painting can provide is a visit to Stanley Spencer's masterpiece, the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere, Hampshire. An inscription in the chapel explains that the paintings 'are the fulfilment of a design which he conceived whilst on active service' and these scenes of...Waley, D. P.
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Journal article
The British bindings in the Henry Davis gift
WHEN Henry Davis, C.B.E. died on 10 January 1977 the majority of his magnificent collection of bookbindings joined those already on exhibition in the British Library. The Gift, which comprises approximately 800 decorated bookbindings and 260 reference books is too extensive and too varied to receive proper justice in a...Foot, Mirjam M.