What constitutes a really great private library? What kinds of books does such a library contain? How is such a library furnished? How many generations are required to bring such a library to its fullest fruition? How much money must be lavished on such a library to insure its enshrinement in the pantheon of truly great private libraries?
We have spent the past 254 posts showing folks how, using very little money and a few simple collecting strategies, one can easily construct a very nice private library of one's own.
Judging, however, from the records of searches that have been undertaken on this blog over the past eight months, strong urges among us lesser mortals still compel many of us to indulge in fantasies about what kind of private library we could construct given unlimited funds and several generations of familial collecting.
To assuage this interest we have long included in the right-hand column of this blog a section, Famous Private Libraries, that contains links to information about great libraries past and present. Because auction records of great libraries often fail to describe the actual room(s) within which a collector's books are (were) housed, we undertake in this post to look at a few books which do provide such descriptions.
Our first title concerns a great private library that was pulled down after a mere four decades of existence, the library of Ralph Willet (1719-1795):
A Description of the Library at Merly in the County of Dorset was printed for Willet by John Nichols in 1785. As noted in the catalog description of specialist bookseller Jonathan Hill (from whence comes the above image), Willet devoted his life to book collecting (and other interests) after inheriting his family's West Indian estates. An early issue of the magazine The Book Collector (Thomas, Alan. "Ralph Willet of Merly." 1963, pp. 439-448) observes that
[f]ew collectors can have given more thought to the creation of a fitting casket for their treasures. The room was 84 feet long 23 feet wide, and 23 feet high, of which 5 feet, six inches were coving. The bookcases, 13 feet 4 inches high, were of carved mahogany, enriched with a complete Ionic order. The top of each bookcase was flanked with busts, and in the centre was an ornamental scroll inscribed with the subject contained in that case, crowned by the lamp of science with the motto ‘Non Extinguatur’ "But it was the plasterwork of cove and ceiling which made this unique among Georgian libraries. Thought up by Willet and executed by a ‘Mr. Collins’, the theme was nothing less than the origin and progress of civilization.
Alas, this great library--probably the most magnificent private library building constructed in England in the 18th century--was torn down by Willet's nephew after Willet's books were sold in 1813.
These types of titles are rare--most great private libraries are known by the books they contained, not the room(s) in which such books were housed. Thus, one's source of knowledge about such private libraries most often is the catalog of such books, said catalog created by the owner of the library or by his/her heirs or, much more frequently, by the auction house which disposed of the collector's library upon his/her demise (more on this shortly).
That said, more encompassing titles occasionally still get published, a recent notable example being The Holkham Library: A History and Description. Privately printed for distribution to members of Great Britain's Roxburghe Club by the present (7th) Lord Leicester in 2006, the volume gives a detailed description and history of one of the world's finest private libraries, much of which was acquired on the Grand Tour of France and Italy by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1697-1759) who built Holkham Hall in Norfolk:
As a condition of membership in the Roxburghe Club (the oldest bibliophilic society in the world, founded in 1812), all members are required to produce (at their expense) a book for presentation to the other [39] members. The subject of such books lies entirely at the discretion of the individual member, providing that it lies within the normal scope of the Club’s [own] publications.
Accordingly, 100 copies of Lord Leicester's survey of his family's magnificent library (penned by D. P. Mortlock, the Earl's librarian) was bound in original quarter green morocco with library buckram sides blocked in gilt on spine and upper cover, of which 39 copies were reserved for presentation to Lord Leicester's fellow Roxburghe Club members. The remaining 61 leather-bound copies, plus an additional 200 copies bound in original full green buckram, blocked in gilt on upper cover and spine, were reserved for sale "to the trade" (recognition of the considerable interest generated by this library, one of the world's few truly great private libraries which remains in the possession of its founding family. Housed in three rooms, the library is still occasionally open to public viewing.)
It usually, though, is not the owner of a great private library that oversees production of a detailed history and description of such library, but rather an outside observer. Such especially is the case when a formerly private library is bequeathed to the public. Consider the case of Evergreen House, within which still is housed the magnificent four-room library of Ambassador John Work Garrett, which had descended from his father, Thomas Harrison Garrett, and was--during its heyday--the largest private library in Maryland.
John Work Garrett and His Library at Evergreen House (privately printed, 1944) was penned by Benjamin Howell Grisworld, Jr., a Johns Hopkins University trustee (to which university this library passed when Ambassador Garrett died in 1942). Griswold's banking firm, Alex Brown & Sons, had been instrumental in financing the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, source of the family's fortune (founded by Ambassador Garrett's grandfather, also named John Work Garrett):
If one's private library really is worthy of enshrinement in the pantheon of truly great private libraries, a detailed description of your library's furnishings might even make it into the auction catalog that disperses your collection. This does not happen all that frequently, but it does happen. And such auction catalogs, if recent, tend to be readily available in the marketplace and not particularly expensive (in fact, the softbound copies of such catalogs often can be scooped up on eBay and like venues for a mere pittance). Some typical recent examples include The Library of H. Bradley Martin (Sotheby's, 1989-1990) and The Library of the Earl of Macclesfield Removed from Shirburn Castle (Sotheby's, 2004-2008):
Auction catalogs like these are, of course, also great for provenance ("chain of ownership") research, though such research often is bittersweet when a great library like Macclesfield ceases to exist....
Recent Comments