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The arrival of books by dowry or inheritance into family libraries frequently introduces unexpected evidence of book ownership. Often fragmentary and out of context, these collections are routinely overlooked. This paper examines one such collection, a group of c. 140 books which arrived at Nostell Priory in 1781, part of the inheritance of Louise Sabine d'Hervart (1734–1798), shipped from her childhood home in Vevey, Switzerland. Primarily Germanic, printed between 1550 and 1700, these books chart the reading, interests, and circles of acquaintance of three generations of the Dünz family, an important Brugg dynasty of artists, glass painters, and architects active in the cultural and political life of Bern and its locality. The paper opens with a discussion of some of the methodological challenges facing those working with women's books in private libraries. It then examines the Swiss German books at Nostell, showing how they inform us of the cultural, intellectual, and social lives of members of the Dünz and related families, both male and female. Specifically, these books reveal a culture of book giving and the recording of the exchange of books, but also of close and long-standing relationships between their owners and significant members of the Swiss book trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Association Fever" published in Reviews in American History discusses Denise Gigante's book "Madness: A Story of Book Collectors in America," focusing on the sale of Charles Lamb's books in 1848 and the subsequent impact on the world of nineteenth-century bibliomania. Gigante traces the connections between booksellers, collectors, and literary objects, highlighting the sentimental attachment to literary texts. The narrative explores various communities of book enthusiasts, including New York literati, Shakespeare enthusiasts, Boston antiquarians, and library founders, shedding light on their passion for books and the changing landscape of the literary market in the mid-nineteenth century. [Extracted from the article]

David Hunter's book, "On Believing," challenges traditional views on belief by suggesting that beliefs should be seen as qualities rather than objects. He explores various philosophical concepts such as causation, dispositions, propositions, and inference, and discusses the connections between recent and past philosophers. Hunter argues that beliefs do not represent and that no norms apply to believers, but he does emphasize doxastic responsibility and agency. The text also delves into the social aspect of belief, ethical considerations, and the relationship between beliefs and actions. Additionally, the author raises questions about responsibility and accountability for one's beliefs, particularly in cases where rational capacities are diminished or influenced by external factors. [Extracted from the article]

Among the spoils from the Tunis campaign of 1535, a large number of Arabic books were taken to Europe. At a time before the Ottoman Empire became the centre of gravity for collection efforts, the arrival of looted Tunisian manuscripts was a momentous event for European scholars and collectors. However, undocumented in official loot registers or mis-catalogued in library records, many of these Tunisian books fell into oblivion over time and are virtually absent from modern historiography. By tracing the movement of these North African books among collectors in early modern Europe, this article explores the networks and policies of the first orientalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This obituary is a tribute to Roger H. Stuewer, a respected physicist and historian of science. Born in Shawano, Wisconsin, to German immigrant grandparents, Stuewer had a challenging upbringing marked by his father's strict discipline and his mother's health issues. Despite these difficulties, Stuewer excelled academically and pursued a career in physics and history of science. He made significant contributions to the field, including his work on the history of nuclear physics and his efforts to bridge the gap between historians and physicists. Stuewer was also known for his dedication to teaching and his love of travel and culture. He passed away in 2022, leaving behind a lasting legacy in the scientific community. [Extracted from the article]

The materiality and subject matter of a pair of theatrical scrapbooks held by the Folger Shakespeare Library (Folger MS W.b.110 and W.b.111) provide an unusual, detailed window into the inner workings of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Rather than the more common account books for the theater, these scrapbooks preserve the actual receipts for goods and services, complete with signatures and countersignatures of the tradespeople and theater managers. This paper explores how the "Shakespeare Factor" influenced the collecting practices of nineteenth-century antiquarians and book collectors, which in turn helped ensure the very survival of these receipts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Trade in Rare Books and Manuscripts between Britain and America c. 1890–1929" by Danielle Magnusson and Laura Cleaver explores the period of American book collecting from 1890 to 1929, which was a time of significant growth and change in the market. The authors discuss the rise of American collectors and the increasing sophistication among buyers during this period. They also highlight the important role played by British and American booksellers in facilitating the trade. The book provides a detailed account of notable sales, collectors, and key figures in the trade, drawing on archival material and personal correspondence. The authors present both British and American perspectives, showcasing the tensions and stereotypes that existed between the two countries. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into the motivations of collectors and the dynamics of the rare book and manuscript trade during this golden age. [Extracted from the article]

In August 1840 a letter published in The Musical World announced the discovery of “four large iron chests filled with music-books”, some of great rarity, which have never been recovered. The truth is that the announcement is a hoax. But who perpetrated it? This essay sifts the evidence and attempts to solve the mystery.

W. T. H. Howe (1868–1939) was one of the most prominent book collectors and literary patrons of the Golden Era of book collecting, yet his efforts have been largely forgotten. This piece strives to correct that oversight, providing information about Howe's life and situating him among American book collectors of his period. Fellow collectors such as Barton Currie and Richard Curle lauded his foresighted purchases of Poe and Hawthorne works at the famous Wakeman sale of 1924; later he made splashy purchases of Lewis Carroll first editions that positioned him as a major contributor to the 1932 New York "Alice" exhibition. Howe accumulated a huge treasure trove of literary manuscripts and rare books that he kept in Cincinnati, where he was president of the world's largest textbook publisher, the American Book Company. Friends with rare booksellers such as Walter Hill of Chicago and Alfred Goldsmith of New York, Howe shaped collecting trends to emphasize nineteenth-century and contemporary writers. When Howe died suddenly without a will, his collection was slated for auction, but bookman Mitchell Kennerley brokered a deal with Alfred Berg, who purchased the library en bloc and donated it to the New York Public Library. Ironically, this saved Howe's collection intact, but obscured his role in building the foundation of today's Berg Collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Helen Wright Collection of Autographed Books at Vassar College testifies to a modernist market that was sustained in its capitalization of individual author signatures by a system of secondary literary labors. Straddling differently gendered spheres of this market, Wright competed with established book collectors while retaining a sense of "sentimental ownership" (Lori Merish) that set her apart from the bibliophile businessmen of her era. This endeavor involved commodifying celebrities such as Edith Wharton, whose conspicuous absence from the collection speaks to a conception of meaningful literary work that negates Wright's labor. Ultimately, the essay seeks to advance a broader discussion of how scholars can do justice to an understanding of literary production as integrally involving forms of labor that have historically been undervalued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cao Yin was a famous minister, poet, writer and book collector during the period of Emperor Kangxi’s reign in the early Qing Dynasty. Collected Poems of Lian Ting was an important literary book of Cao Yin with rich tea culture and tea fragrance. The word "Lian Ting" was of high frequency, forming a certain cultural symbol and link between the literati from south of the Yangtze River. By investigating Cao Yin's tea activities, it is found that he, with tea as the means, drinking as the medium, poetry and prose as the link, and traveling as the platform, attracted hundreds of scholars from the south of Yangtze River and formed a huge group of literati, making himself the leader of the Southeast Elegance Alliance. He delivered messages to Emperor Kangxi and showed the elegant music of the prosperous period for the Qing Dynasty. The strong sense of tea embodied the cultural connotations of Chinese tea in his family, friendship, colleagues, which perfectly reflects the connotation of Chinese tea culture. Cao Yin claimed to have a tea habit, regarding tea as "the food of immortals". He considered himself as "Yuchuanzi". As an official in the south region of the Yangtze River, he came up with the conclusion that "tea fills the world". The tea culture in his Collected Poems of Lian Ting influenced the creation of Cao Xueqin’s A Dream of Red Mansions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of acquiring books, from legal purchases to humorous instances of book theft, reflecting on their lifelong journey as a book collector.

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This study revolves around what led to the necessity of adding letters with letters and sentences in the books of meanings of the Qur'an until the end of the fourth century AH, which are: (The Book of Meanings of the Qur'an for AlFaraa, Meanings of the Qur'an for Al-Akhfash, Meanings and syntax of the Qur'an for Alzujaj, and the two books (The Meanings and syntax of the Qur'an for Alnahaas). The researcher extrapolated the poetic evidence that bears the necessities in grammatical issues and extracted them. Although most scholars said that the Qur'an should not be carried out on necessity, we find that in their interpretations of the verses of the wise Quran they carried one of the aspects that are not permissible except in necessity. If the term necessity allows the poet to break the rules, is it possible to apply the term "necessity'' to the interpretations of scholars in some aspects of readings? Did the owners of the meanings books mention the necessity of some readings? Did they choose the necessity, or did they reject it and allow others? The research aims to stand on the issues that led to the necessity of increasing the letters, clarifying the stand of scholars toward them, and solving the problem of necessity in the Qur'an by mentioning the opinions of scholars and standing by them. After the introduction, the research contained two sections, the first topic was the definition of poetic necessity, the position of Grammar scientist on necessity in the Qur'an and readings, and the approach of the owners of meaning books in resorting to necessity in letters. And the second topic was where I dealt with three issues related to the necessity of adding letters with letters and sentences, which are: (1 the introduction of a preposition on its like, (2 the increase of the conjunction (and), and (3 an increase (um), so the owners of the books of meanings in their directives to the verses of the wise Quran mentioned aspects of interpretation based on poetic necessity, even if they did not explicitly sometimes, then their opinion on necessity in the Qur'an, after an introduction in which I dealt with the grammatical issue that was addressed by the owners of the books of meanings, and I mention the opinions of scholars and whether they are necessary for them? Before concluding, I articulate the commenters' opinions, if they claimed necessity in the Holy Quran and their response for those who claimed it, and then the researcher recommends one of the opinions and a conclusion with the most prominent results of the research that I reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The booktube community comprises individuals who share their literary experiences through videos posted on the YouTube platform. They are also book collectors who share their collections and their own subjective reasons for collecting books. Since their videos are published using tags, our focus was on the 'bookshelf tour' tag. This is a case study which utilized video analysis to investigate their classification criteria. We used the think-aloud protocols to collect the data. Content analysis was conducted, and the concept of classification was employed to understand the particular categories of private organization in their shelves and where these categories originated. Furthermore, we also considered studies related to book collections for interpreting the subjective connection between collecting and classification items in private collections. The results of the investigation highlighted three main aspects. Firstly, the desire to showcase their collection significantly influences their classification categories. Secondly, classification stands out as one of the primary activities of book collectors. Thirdly, the categories are influenced by their backgrounds and life stories, although many of them have been changing their classification considering their audience's opinion. When they make these classifications visible and explain their reasons for their choices, they also engage with their audience. In conclusion, we observed that when a classification scheme is based on the classifier's identity, it can lead to some instability in the categories. However, it also demonstrates how memory plays a crucial role in the retrieval process and how their worldview is reflected in these categories. Moreover, the digital environment influences on personal classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While John Lydgate's aureate style is commonly recognized as one of the significant features of his poetics, its reception among medieval audiences has not been closely assessed. This article is a case study that explores early readerly responses to Lydgate's aureate and paraliturgical lyrics collected in a late-fifteenth-century short anthology, Booklet IX of Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.21. Produced for a wealthy London merchant, this booklet reflects, at least partially, its first owner's literary interests, and its mise-en-page presents the aureate and paraliturgical lyrics as material objects. Such material presentations embed the texts in the sociocultural milieu of late-fifteenth-century London and presumably helped the first owner of the booklet to establish his social profile by performatively intertwining his devotional and literary agency with the sophistication of the poems contained in the volume [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based primarily on archival sources, the article presents new relevant facts about the life of Jiří [Georgius] Mělnický of Greifenfels († 1619), the first owner of a copy of Kalendář historický printed by Daniel Adam of Veleslavín in 1590. Concerning this copy, significant research attention has been devoted to only one more owner of this book, Václav Nosidlo, namely in connection with his chronicle recordings from exile in 1625-1639. The only information about J. Mělnický so far has come from the owner's marks in Veleslavín's calendar: his initials with the date 1596 and a heraldic bookplate on the upper board, an attached sheet of paper with Jiří Mělnický's woodcut arms, and an encomiastic poem on this insignia written by Jiří [Georgius] Carolides of Carlsperk. The binding has been successfully assigned to Kryštof Meyšnar's bookbinding shop. The activities of Jiří Mělnický, originally named Pšovský, in Koporeč, Polehrady and Litoměřice have been proved by archival documents, but his presumed stay in Mělník and Prague remains unconfirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the social and political role of Czech home libraries during the communist era (1948–1989). Analyses of qualitative data from existing oral history reading projects and methodological impulses of memory studies serve as grounds for multiple interpretations of this specific role. Home libraries can be considered as a counterreaction to the official propaganda and to regular purges of politically unsuitable books from public libraries; a reflection of building up alternatives to the centrally controlled public sphere; and perhaps even as a form of book consumers' need for hoarding as a reaction to the shortage of desirable volumes on the state-operated book market. However, we argue that the persistent position of Czech home libraries as the depository of social and cultural capital can be traced in the enduring, nearly cultic veneration of the book and reading in the Czech book owners' book memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Order of the Friars Minor faced a dilemma from the outset: their Rule of life, written by their founder St Francis of Assisi, included a strict adherence to the ideal of absolute poverty (that is, living without property, even property held in common), and yet it was impossible to fulfil their pastoral activities in the community without at least one type of property – liturgical books. In both the earlier (1209/10–1221) and later (1223) Rules, St Francis discussed the ownership of books, but not their production. Surviving manuscripts and archival records alert us to the fact that friars did produce their own liturgical books and act as the scribes and illuminators of books made for others. As both producers and owners of illuminated manuscripts, the friars engaged in a careful navigation of the relationship between beauty (permissible as an expression of invisible divine beauty, as defined by Hugh of St Victor) and luxury. It was all too easy (as the Franciscan Durand of Champagne bemoaned) for friars to desire 'beautiful ... and ... curiously illuminated [books, rather] than true and well corrected ones'. This essay explores the ways in which friars negotiated the issues of poverty, beauty and luxury, and how they expressed and satisfied their desire for books, drawing on examples from the library of the Sacro Convento in Assisi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is also provided on how Black vaudeville was championed in the Black press and debates between African American intellectuals on how vaudeville fit in, or did not, to the development of the "New Negro". T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theatre Owners' Booking Association in Jazz-Age America Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment in America in the early decades of the twentieth century. [Extracted from the article]

Miscellanies are usually identified through absence: the absence of some unifying codicological, thematic, linguistic, or other cohering principle. After identifying this absence, books can be termed miscellanies—or commonplace books, collections, compilations, household books, and so forth. Such varying terminology highlights the challenges of identifying miscellanies today. Situating the miscellany in its documentary context, this essay examines hundreds of English wills written between 1400 and 1499 to evaluate descriptive trends employed by book owners of the late Middle Ages that clarify how they conceptualized miscellanies. For testators and executors, easy identification of all books, including miscellanies, was necessary to facilitate the distribution of bequests. Consequently, patterns established across wills illuminate aspects of miscellanies perceived as facilitating accessible identification. Moreover, in the role of the will as a public document offering testators one final opportunity to shape their reputation, descriptions of miscellanies also conveyed aspects of testators' identities that they prized or that emphasized their social status, such as aesthetic values, literacy skills, erudition, and more. As this essay argues, examining descriptions of miscellanies in wills reveals not only identification practices for miscellanies among book owners and readers in late medieval England but also roles played by miscellanies as culturally freighted objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a detailed case study of Mary Booth as book owner and book user using two primary sources: her surviving library and her commonplace books. Booth's fastidious approach to marking her books, coupled with the fortunate survival of the two houses where those books ultimately came to rest, allows for the reconstruction of her library almost in its entirety. Her commonplace books present an unusually rich record of her reading. Together, these sources offer a rare insight into the life, education, and book use of an early eighteenth-century gentlewoman, a rare comparator against which other women's collections and habits of reading can be assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This volume of essays examines the collection of manuscripts and old books owned by Robert Edward Hart (1878-1946), now housed at the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery in Lancashire. McKendrick focuses instead on a fifteenth-century manuscript book of hours in a contribution titled "Contextualising the Art and Innovations of the Master of Edward IV in the Blackburn Hours (Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Hart MS 20884)." Richly illustrated with beautiful color images, the book is intended to celebrate the life and passions of Robert Edward Hart, a ropemaker and bibliophile with a desire to collect early printed and manuscript books for himself and for the next generation. [Extracted from the article]

Regardless of these shortcomings and in light of its many assets, the book provides a commendable example to investigate further the long-lasting afterlife of Aldus across Europe and beyond. Not only did its creator, the Erasmian humanist Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella, buy a great many Aldine books, but he went as far as to use Aldus for a "camuflaje administrativo." An exhaustive apparatus of indexes for names, manuscripts, printed books, and illustrations helps the reader to navigate this thought-provoking volume. [Extracted from the article]