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- The Pre-Modern Manuscript Trade and its Consequences, ca. 1890–1945
The Pre-Modern Manuscript Trade and its Consequences, ca. 1890–1945
Edited by Laura Cleaver, Danielle Magnusson, Hannah Morcos and Angéline Rais
Series: Collection Development, Cultural Heritage, and Digital Humanities
467 Pages, Trim size: 6 x 9 in
- Hardcover
- 9781802701371
- Published: May 2024
- eBook (PDF)
- 9781802702071
- Published: May 2024
This collection brings together current research into the development of the market for pre-modern manuscripts. Between 1890 and 1945 thousands of manuscripts made in Europe before 1600 appeared on the market. Many entered the collections in which they have remained, shaping where and how we encounter the books today. These collections included libraries that bear their founders’ names, as well as national and regional public libraries. The choices of the super-rich shaped their collections and determined what was available to those with fewer resources. In addition, wealthy collectors sponsored scholarship on their manuscripts and participated in exhibitions, raising the profile of some books. This volume examines the collectors, dealers, and scholars who engaged with pre-modern books, and the cultural context of the manuscript trade in this era.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Introduction
Part 1: Dealers and the Market
Chapter 1. Pierre-Louis Pinault, Bernard Quaritch Ltd., Bibliophilic Clubs and the Trade in Medieval Manuscripts ca. 1878–1939
Chapter 2. A. S. G. Edwards, Selling Middle English Manuscripts to North America up to 1945
Chapter 3. Danielle Magnusson, Dollars and Drama: Early English Plays and the American Book Trade 1906–1926
Chapter 4. Livia Marcelli, The Fates of the Manuscripts from the Vallicelliana Library of Rome at the end of the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 5. Katharina Kaska and Christoph Egger, Fuelling the Market—Sales from Austrian Monasteries 1919–1938
Chapter 6. Angéline Rais, Jacques Rosenthal’s Marketing Strategies: An Analysis of the Bibliotheca medii aevi manuscripta,1925–1928
Chapter 7. Margaret Connolly, From Drawing Room to Sale-room: Albums of Medieval Manuscript Cuttings in the 1920s
Chapter 8. Lisa Fagin Davis, Buying and Breaking with Philip and Otto
Part 2: Buyers
Chapter 9. Francesca Manzari, Illuminations from Northern and Central Italy in the Collection of the Dealer Vittorio Forti
Chapter 10. Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis, The One That Got Away: How Lord Brotherton Lost Out on a Book and Founded a Library
Chapter 11. Karen Winslow, Becoming a Gentleman Collector: Alfred Chester Beatty’s Influence on Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s Manuscript Collection
Chapter 12. Martina Lanza, A Private Library and the Making of the Middle Ages in Florence: Piero Ginori Conti’s Collection
Chapter 13. Paola Paesano, The “Calenzio Deal” and the Auction of the Oldest Vallicelliana Codices, 1874–1916
Chapter 14. Federico Botana, The Acquisitions of Florentine Public Libraries 1900–1935
Chapter 15. Hannah Morcos, Private Purses and “National” Possessions: The French Acquisitions from the Phillipps Library (1908)
Chapter 16. Jérémy Delmulle and Hanno Wijsman, The Case of Louvain University Library 1919–1940
Chapter 17. James C. P. Ranahan, To Buy, or Not to Buy? Market Forces and the Making of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Collections
Chapter 18. Toby Burrows, Women Owners and Collectors in de Ricci’s Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada
Chapter 19. Natalia Fantetti, “A most fascinating and dangerous pursuit:” The Book Collecting of Isabella Stewart Gardner
Chapter 20. Jill Unkel, The Collector, Edith Beatty (1886–1952)
Chapter 21. Nathalie Roman, Paul Durrieu (1855–1925): Art Collecting and Scholarly Expertise
Part 3: Scholarly and Creative Engagements
Chapter 22. Nigel Ramsay, Chronicling the Market in Rare Books and Manuscripts: William Roberts and Seymour de Ricci
Chapter 23. Christine Jakobi-Mirwald, Stories of an Antiquary: The Legacy of M. R. James
Chapter 24. Kate Falardeau, Phillipps MS 24275 and the Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Historiography of Bede’s Martyrology
Chapter 25. Alan Mitchell, Manuscripts and Meaning: The Biography and Value of John Ruskin’s Blue Psalter, Brussels,Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (KBR), MS IV 1013
Chapter 26. Nora Moroney, Translation, Tradition and Tracing the History of an Irish Manuscript Primer
Chapter 27. Dongwon Esther Kim, The Bedford Psalter and Hours: Making and Un-making National Identity in the Acquisition of an “English” Manuscript
Chapter 28. Alexandra Plane, The National Collection that Never Was: The “failure” of Henry Yates Thompson’s Experimental National Gallery Exhibition
Chapter 29. Gaia Grizzi, Exhibiting Italian Books Outside Italy: Tammaro de Marinis and the 1926 Exhibition Le livre italien
Chapter 30. William P. Stoneman, A Reference Book for Scholars and Collectors: Eric Millar’s English Illuminated Manuscripts, 1926–1928
Conclusion: Consequences
Select Bibliography
Index of Premodern Manuscripts
Index of Personal Names
Laura Cleaver is Senior Lecturer in Manuscript Studies at the University of London and Principal Investigator of the CULTIVATE MSS project.
Danielle Magnusson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the CULTIVATE MSS project. Her research focuses on American collecting and early modern drama.
Hannah Morcos is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the CULTIVATE MSS project. Her research focuses on the trade in French manuscripts.
Angéline Rais is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the CULTIVATE MSS project. Her research focuses on book dealers in Germany and Switzerland.
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