Library Antiquarian

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2024

Christopher — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 05:13:08 +0000

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2024

Christopher Skelton-Foord

Issue number

(2024): 22

Notes category

Francis Noel Clarke Mundy

William Somervile

Edward Perry Warren

Erich Maria Remarque

The earliest important imprints we have acquired for the library this year are three 16th- and early 17th-century volumes, by a priest and scholar whose erudition was much admired by Pope Clement VIII. Thomas Stapleton (1535–98), one of our college’s foremost theologians, was possibly named after St Thomas More—who was martyred under Henry VIII for refusing to avow royal over spiritual supremacy; More was executed just days before Stapleton’s birth. From Winchester ��Ƶ, Stapleton proceeded to ��Ƶ, where he was elected a fellow on 18 January 1553; five years later, in 1558, he was ordained a priest under Mary I. But within a couple of years, he had been forced to flee to the Low Countries, following Elizabeth I’s accession.

And, of course—we have been acquiring some remarkable modern books and archival documents too.

Nicola Howell Hawley, endpapers illustration to Andrew Caldecott’s Simul (2024)
��Ƶ Library, Oxford, NC/CAL

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

22NCN8 (2024) Skelton-Foord on Acquisitions 2024.pdf1.59 MB

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ��Ƶ Clergy in Italy

Christopher — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 05:00:05 +0000

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ��Ƶ Clergy in Italy

Robert Gullifer

Issue number

(2024): 22

Notes category

Walter Augustus Shirley

Library Antiquarian

RS5414

Anglican Church

In common with their well-heeled contemporaries, many 19th-century English clergy took advantage of more settled political conditions and improved methods of transport to travel to Italy, both with an eye for classical tourism and for health reasons to escape the more deleterious effects of a British winter. They did not always have a good press. A clergy correspondent writing to the Bishop of London in 1847 opined that ‘men driven from England in debt or in disgrace are encouraged to seek, and actually do find employment as ministers of English congregations abroad’.

Frontispiece portrait of Walter Augustus Shirley
��Ƶ Library, Oxford, RS5414

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

22NCN7 (2024) Gullifer on Italian Jobs.pdf272.76 KB

Learning Physics in ��Ƶ in the 1690s

Christopher — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 04:20:23 +0000

Learning Physics in ��Ƶ in the 1690s

William Poole

Issue number

(2024): 22

Notes category

I recently re-encountered a little octavo textbook in physics published in 1690, the Synopsis physicæ by a ��Ƶ man, Francis Willis. The author was from Thame, where his father—who had also attended the college—as the rector ran the local grammar school, an institution then under the college’s supervision. His textbook in physics is evidently the product of his reading and thinking for the MA, often the period in which students turned towards more in-depth study of, especially, natural philosophy.

A tornado, in Ralph Bohun’s A Discourse concerning the Origine and Properties of Wind (1671)
��Ƶ Library, Oxford, BT3.248.11(2), p. 19

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

22NCN4 (2024) Poole on Learning Physics.pdf409.2 KB

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

Christopher — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:04:22 +0000

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

James Willoughby

Issue number

(2024): 21

Notes category

Library Printed Fragments

The fragments in ��Ƶ Library which are the focus of this note are two large vellum leaves of Imperial size, three sides of which are printed, the fourth blank, and it was on this blank page that John Russell wrote his name in 1472. The discoloration at the edges shows that they were once pastedown; they may originally have been flyleaves; in either case, the verso was the natural place for an inscription.

��Ƶ Library, Oxford, LPF3/2, f. 47 [detail]

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

21NCN2 (2024) Willoughby on Russell.pdf1008.34 KB

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2023

Christopher — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 02:09:49 +0000

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2023

Christopher Skelton-Foord

Issue number

(2023): 20

Notes category

Library Antiquarian

Ongoing collection development activity ensures we do not rest on our laurels, and 2023 saw us procure important antiquarian items that speak to times of religious and political conflict. Chief among them are: a rare copy of An Answere to Maister Juelles Chalenge (1564) by ��Ƶ Jesuit theologian Thomas Harding (1516–1572), who fled to Louvain for refuge following the accession of Elizabeth I; a donation by a generous alumnus of Miscellanea Spiritualia: or, Devout Essaies (1648) by Benedictine abbot Walter Montagu (1603?–1677), who as a recusant was banished, then later imprisoned in the Tower of London; a copy of a defence of Charles I during the Civil War period, Elenchus Motuum nuperorum in Anglia (1649), by ��Ƶ man George Bate (1608–1668), who extraordinarily was chief physician successively to Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and Charles II; and four books (at auction) by college fellow Thomas Ken (1637–1711), who refused to comply with the attempts of James II to grant the realm religious freedom and suspend enforced conformity to the Church of England.

��Ƶ Rowing IV, Cloisters, New College (1909)—showing Ernest Victor Culme-Seymour (second from left)
��Ƶ Archives, Oxford, NCA JCR/R/Culme-Seymour/23

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

20NCN10 (2023) Skelton-Foord on Acquisitions in 2023.pdf1.65 MB

Collecting

Christopher — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:59:16 +0000

Collecting

Christopher Skelton-Foord

Issue number

(2023): 20

Notes category

Recently I acquired for ��Ƶ Library’s collections a first edition copy of The Collector, the debut novel by ��Ƶ alumnus John Fowles (1926–2005), which sixty years ago in 1963 launched his spectacular career as a writer. First published in May 1963 by Jonathan Cape of London, the copy I acquired bears the iconic original dustjacket with a trompe-l’œil design by Tom Adams (1926–2019), who also created the artwork for paperback editions of Agatha Christie’s novels. Moreover, this particular copy was signed by Fowles.

John Fowles, The Collector (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963), dustjacket
��Ƶ Library, Oxford, NC/FOW

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

20NCN8 (2023) Skelton-Foord on Collecting (Fowles).pdf947.96 KB

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ��Ƶ Library

Christopher — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 23:11:03 +0000

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ��Ƶ Library

William Shire

Issue number

(2023): 20

Notes category

Library Benefactors' Book

Arthur Lake

What is the history of two copies (BT3.204.15 and BT3.204.16) of the same text held at ��Ƶ Library—an English translation of José de Acosta’s The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies, first published in 1604? The readership, marginalia, binding, and provenance of these two copies are not only unique, but also provide insight into the history of ��Ƶ, that of its alumni, and the development of its extensive library over the centuries.

��Ƶ Library, Oxford, BT3.204.16, title page [detail]

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

20NCN5 (2023) Shire on East and West Indies.pdf1.25 MB

Sir Philip Rashleigh, Mineralogy, and the Cornish Industrial Revolution

Christopher — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 14:03:11 +0000

Sir Philip Rashleigh, Mineralogy, and the Cornish Industrial Revolution

William Shire

Issue number

(2023): 19

Notes category

Specimens of British Minerals was written by the mineralogist and antiquary, Sir Philip Rashleigh. Published in two parts in 1797 and 1802, the ��Ƶ Library copy contains both of these parts bound together to form one volume. Although in a relatively unassuming binding, its author, provenance, and contents are significant both historically and bibliographically.

��Ƶ Library, Oxford, NB.190.10

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

19NCN6 (2023) Shire on Sir Philip Rashleigh.pdf322 KB

Fear Sells: Addenda to the 1588 Malleus Maleficarum

Christopher — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:09:34 +0000

Fear Sells: Addenda to the 1588 Malleus Maleficarum

Caitlín Kane

Issue number

(2023): 19

Notes category

��Ƶ Library holds a 1588 edition of the renowned treatise on witchcraft, the Malleus Maleficarum or ‘Hammer of Witches’, the archetypal misogynistic text which advocated the persecution and torture of witches as heretics in secular courts.

��Ƶ Library, Oxford, BT3.259.6

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

19NCN4 (2023) Kane on Addenda.pdf385.21 KB

Old English at New: Early Printed Books in Anglo-Saxon Type, 1570–1705

Christopher — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:21:20 +0000

Old English at New: Early Printed Books in Anglo-Saxon Type, 1570–1705

Antje G. Frotscher

Issue number

(2023): 19

Notes category

After over four centuries of neglect and disregard, Anglo-Saxon language, lore, and literature saw a renaissance in the 16th century. This is usually associated with the Reformation, and more specifically with the dissolution of the monasteries through which a number of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts from the monastic libraries came into the hands of interested antiquarians bent on preserving ancient knowledge and art.

��Ƶ Library, Oxford, NB.187.17

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

19NCN2 (2023) Frotscher on Old English.pdf1.58 MB

Library Antiquarian

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ������Ƶ Library in 2024

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ������Ƶ Library in 2024

And, of course—we have been acquiring some remarkable modern books and archival documents too.

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ������Ƶ Clergy in Italy

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ������Ƶ Clergy in Italy

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Learning Physics in ������Ƶ in the 1690s

Learning Physics in ������Ƶ in the 1690s

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ������Ƶ Library in 2023

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ������Ƶ Library in 2023

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Collecting

Collecting

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ������Ƶ Library

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ������Ƶ Library

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Sir Philip Rashleigh, Mineralogy, and the Cornish Industrial Revolution

Sir Philip Rashleigh, Mineralogy, and the Cornish Industrial Revolution

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Fear Sells: Addenda to the 1588 Malleus Maleficarum

Fear Sells: Addenda to the 1588 Malleus Maleficarum

������Ƶ Library holds a 1588 edition of the renowned treatise on witchcraft, the Malleus Maleficarum or ‘Hammer of Witches’, the archetypal misogynistic text which advocated the persecution and torture of witches as heretics in secular courts.

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Old English at New: Early Printed Books in Anglo-Saxon Type, 1570–1705

Old English at New: Early Printed Books in Anglo-Saxon Type, 1570–1705

������Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2024

Three Stapletons and Other Remarkable Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2024

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ��Ƶ Clergy in Italy

Italian Jobs: Two Nineteenth-Century ��Ƶ Clergy in Italy

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Learning Physics in ��Ƶ in the 1690s

Learning Physics in ��Ƶ in the 1690s

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2023

Unique and Distinctive Acquisitions to ��Ƶ Library in 2023

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ��Ƶ Library

A Tale of Two Books: The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies at ��Ƶ Library

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

��Ƶ Library holds a 1588 edition of the renowned treatise on witchcraft, the Malleus Maleficarum or ‘Hammer of Witches’, the archetypal misogynistic text which advocated the persecution and torture of witches as heretics in secular courts.

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford

��Ƶ Library and Archives, Oxford