Introduction

Libraries, Books, and Collectors of Texts, 1600-1900 presents the collectors’ roles as prominently as the collections of books and texts which they assembled. While individually, the chapters in this volume break new ground in their particular fields, together, the chapters argue for the social dimension of collecting and collections. The contributors explore the activities and networks shaping a range of British, continental, and transcontinental European public and private collections during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and modern eras. Scholars from a variety of disciplines, including literary and library studies, bibliography, history, and history of art, study here the effect of class, geographical location, and specific cultural contexts on the gathering and use of printed and handwritten texts, and other printed artefacts. The volume’s aim, therefore, is twofold: to explore the social dimension of book collecting and to consider how practices of collecting developed during these periods of profound cultural, social, and political change.