The Country House Library By Mark Purcell
The Country House Library kindle reader
A well researched volume featuring essays tracing the history of English country house libraries Much of the information on contents of these libraries is derived from estate inventories and published catalogues One essay discusses its counter part the town house library specifically in the context of those who owned both homes in places such as London as well as in the country The book was interesting but probably bogs down a bit for the average reader due to its academic nature The book however will interest persons passionate about the history of books and libraries The book contains a number of illustrations featuring country house libraries and their features The review is based on an advance review copy received from the publisher through NetGalley with the expectation of an honest review 352 Purcell has written an exhaustive history of the English Country House library And I do mean exhaustive He begins his book from the Roman age in Britain and continues chapter after chapter with a timeline of private libraries If you are interested in a discussion of the books formerly in Lord Burlington s villa at Chiswick are today at Chatsworth then this is for you The book is clearly written for academics He does have a very good reason for writing this book He doesn t want the country house library to be forgotten As he states The time when country houses were at the centre of the library world has gone and whole swathes of the books on country house shelves now hold little appeal for many Theology and classical scholarship for example loom large on many ancestral shelves but these have steadily moved from being matters of central importance for any well trained mind to subjects widely regarded as irrelevant or abstruse or even incomprehensible or unutterably boring. Book The Country House library ny On the other hand it is beautifully photographed I found myself dreaming what would it be like to lose oneself in one of these libraries 352 Books books glorious books This beautifully produced and gorgeously lavishly illustrated publication is far than a coffee table book It s a comprehensive history of British bookishness from its beginning to the present day The main thrust of it covers the 17th to 19th centuries the period when the country house came into its own and wealthy people saw Libraries as an essential feature of their homes Mark Purcell looks at both the books and the rooms they were stored in and differentiates between them by calling the book collections libraries with a small l and the rooms Libraries with a capital L and I m going to stick with that for this review. The Country House Library pdf reader There s so much in the book that I ll only be able to give a flavour of it Purcell has clearly had a ball prying into the bookshelves and book catalogues of centuries worth of bibliophiles and his enthusiasm is matched by deep knowledge backed up with an immense amount of research This results in a phenomenal amount of detail which in the early chapters overwhelmed me a little and made the reading heavy going Purcell doesn t simplify by explaining bookish vocabulary which may be unfamiliar to the general reader like me so at first I found myself doing a bit of googling But I found that I gradually became fascinated especially when I realised that the bookshelves of the rich who of course were also the powerful cast an interesting sidelight on many famous historical personages and the societies in which they lived Because Purcell tells us as much about the storage of books as the books themselves it also becomes an architectural history and a history of the lifestyles interests and leisure pursuits of these people an aspect often not covered in standard histories which tend to be concentrated on politics and power. The Country House Library epub.pub Purcell follows a fairly linear timeline throughout He starts with the speculation that the tradition of libraries in Britain began in Roman villas with scrolls and discusses in depth what kind of books would have been read In the next few chapters he covers the period up to and through medieval times showing that there was a considerable level of scholarship amongst the nobility He also discusses how books were stored before Libraries became a feature in chests or flat on shelves in small studies or closets set aside purely for the purpose of reading and study Not unnaturally the main focus is on the English since they comprise by far the largest population but happily he ranges out to Scotland Ireland and Wales too throughout the book which I found tended to bring together the histories of those nations showing a common Britishness that often doesn t come through in histories or biographies of a particular subject. Book The Country House library ny He then goes on to discuss the foundations and fates of the great libraries of the late 17th and 18th centuries some of which would later form the basis of many of our great national and public collections today and some of America s and even Australia s too By now some of the collectors were including lighter entertaining books amongst the great classics and heavy religious texts novels but also lots of informative books like cookery books books on animal husbandry etc English was by now common than Latin and Greek and books in modern languages were beginning to appear on the shelves of the well travelled Illustrated books of things like foreign flora and fauna made me feel that this illustrated book is part of a long tradition and while wikipedia and Google are fabulous alternatives for those of us with modest homes I lusted for the libraries of the 19th century in particular. The country house collection login I also lusted for their Libraries From the illustrations the earliest ones look rather bare and functional huge half empty rooms surrounded by shelving But by the 19th century Libraries had become living spaces where people spent part of their leisure time Railways had allowed for the tradition of the weekend house party to begin and Libraries were becoming part of the attractions of the country house sometimes even including billiard tables or being situated next door to the billiard room Comfy seats appear and footstools card tables open fires and reading lamps The nouveau riche in particular went for comfort and novels and I found myself longing to either be a nouveau riche 19th or early 20th century country house owner or at the very least to be invited to one of their house parties Another place to be added to my where to go when they invent a time machine list. Book The Country House library ny In the major houses books regularly outgrew the space in the main Library don t we all recognise that problem so that other rooms would gradually be co opted into use as secondary Libraries Purcell shows that many of the householders provided books and even occasionally specific Libraries for their servants and some of the libraries gradually began to operate almost like public lending libraries for people in the surrounding countryside Purcell finishes by discussing the 20th century when many of these libraries were sold off or donated sometimes as a method of paying off swingeing inheritance taxes He himself works with the National Trust the body that has taken over responsibility for maintaining many of these great country houses on behalf of the nation and he tells how they ve gradually realised the bookish treasures they ve acquired along with the houses A sad and also happy end the passing of a great tradition but hopefully these books will be maintained and made available to scholars and the public for years to come even if we re not allowed to actually read them. PDF The Country House librarything As you can hopefully tell I loved this it might have been heavy going in places but I learned lots about a subject dear to my bookish heart And those illustrations are to die forNB This book was provided for review by the publisher Yale University Press. Book The Country House library ny com 352 The Country House Library looks at privately owned books in Britain and Ireland from the Roman Britain villas in the 1st century to the country house and town house libraries of recent times The author talked about the types of reading material including information like the languages they were written in the materials used how they were stored and organized and how they acquired He also explored where the books were kept and the furnishings in those rooms if known He talked about known private book collections who owned them how many or what value of books they owned and significant or commonly owned titles in those collections He also talked about what happened to various collections like destruction in fires or dispersal through selling inheritance and such. The Country House Library epub file The author also talked about changes in how and why books were acquired the types of books deemed desirable how books were stored and such He included people s descriptions of various collections and rooms to give an idea of how people viewed these collections at the time This book included beautiful full color pictures of libraries significant books and paintings that show people reading books There was enough focus on changes in collecting habits storage and such that I found the book very interesting. Book The Country House library ny I received a free ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley 352 Beautifully illustrated and meticulously researched this is a fascinating exploration of country house libraries in Britain from Roman times onwards It s a relatively academic text but accessibly written for the general reader to enjoy as well A must have book for all those who love books and libraries 352
| The Country House Library By Mark Purcell |
| 030022740X |
| 9780300227406 |
| English |
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