1 Ossified Collections Embody the Manifold Reasons Motivating Private Collectors
Ossified Collections: The Past Encapsulated in British Institutions Today Karen Attar Chapter published in: Collecting the Past: British Collectors and their Collections from the 18th to the 20th Centuries, ed. by Toby Burrows and Cynthia Johnston (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 113-38 ‘Floreat bibliomania’, entitled that great collector A.N.L. Munby an article published in the New Statesman on 21 June 1952.1 Munby’s main interest was in sale catalogues as records of books assembled and then dispersed.2 This essay provides an overview of a more philanthropic and stable end to collecting: collections of primarily printed books in the British Isles that have stayed together and now enrich institutions, causing broader swathes of scholars and librarians to echo Munby’s prayer. Whilst some outstanding collectors and bibliophiles are highlighted in the standard literature of collecting and other more modest ones are noted in magisterial histories of institutions, feature in dedicated articles, or are commemorated in published catalogues of their collections, these remain the minority.3 This overview is based more widely on some of what has been described as ‘the rest of the iceberg’, through a survey of 873 repositories in the British Isles: national, academic, school, public, subscription and professional libraries, or in trusts, cathedrals, churches, monasteries, London clubs, archives, museums, schools, companies, and stately homes.4 Discussing popular collecting subjects and trends in collecting, it concentrates on ‘collections’ as groups of books with some unifying element, most of which originated with an individual before entering corporate ownership, whilst retaining at least some semblance of their former identity.
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