The Invention of Rare Books: Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600-1840

David McKitterick (University of Cambridge)

The Invention of Rare Books: Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600-1840
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
12 July 2018
Pages
460
ISBN
9781108428323

The Invention of Rare Books: Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600-1840

David McKitterick (University of Cambridge)

When does a book that is merely old become a rarity and an object of desire? David McKitterick examines, for the first time, the development of the idea of rare books, and why they matter. Studying examples from across Europe, he explores how this idea took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how collectors, the book trade and libraries gradually came together to identify canons that often remain the same today. In a world that many people found to be over-supplied with books, the invention of rare books was a process of selection. As books are one of the principal means of memory, this process also created particular kinds of remembering. Taking a European perspective, McKitterick looks at these interests as they developed from being matters of largely private concern and curiosity, to the larger public and national responsibilities of the first half of the nineteenth century.

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