Sublime libraries of a time gone by
IF ANY one room in Britain’s Downton Abbey came to symbolise the wealth, learning and sheer quirkiness of the English aristocracy, it was the library.
There, the nobleman could retreat into a private sanctuary where the earl of this and the duke of that could open a tome to enter the next rabbit hole of self-didactic enrichment.
Some of the papers in these libraries were tatty and loose, but for the most part they amounted to cultural gems, such treasures as illuminated manuscripts, early printed incunabula (any book printed before 1501) and skilfully bound volumes that explored everything from the classics to theology to cosmology.
Each book came with its own origin and patination of history and ownership. They were always expensive. Today, some of the finest – one thinks of a Shakespeare First Folio, for example – sell for millions of rand.
For this reason, many of the grandest surviving libraries tend to be the part of the country house that ticket-buying visitors never get to see, or if they do, it’s from behind a velvet rope. This may have contributed to the way these important and beautiful collections have faded from our cultural consciousness, while other treasures in these palaces – and the palaces themselves – have not.
Mark Purcell seeks to correct this in his survey of historic and surviving country-house libraries of the UK and Ireland.
The Country House Library is a book that seems long overdue. As the former long-time libraries curator for the National Trust, Purcell is well qualified to discuss these troves.
The Trust owns and runs some of the choicest historic houses in Britain and is the steward of 170 or so such libraries in its care.Among his conclusions: libraries were a part of the country house earlier than was generally thought. Their numbers have been underestimated, as has the “enormous range” of their form and function.
But it’s not just the tourists who have ignored the libraries, it’s the scholars, Purcell writes. Architectural and art historians, have forgotten to mention their contents. Some of the rooms are stunning. The library at Alnwick Castle is a two-storey, floor-to-ceiling sanctum that manages to look both magisterial and cosy, with its roaring log fire, marble hearth, and cluster of fine upholstered chairs and settees.
The library at Wimpole Hall is crafted to perfect Palladian proportion; at Syon House and Kenwood House, both by Robert Adam, the book rooms doubled as sublimely elegant gathering spaces.
With the rise in the wealth of the aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries, the libraries became such an important massing of fine books that some owners employed librarians.
For some, rare books became an addiction. In the early 1700s, Edward Harley, the 2nd Earl of Oxford, amassed 7 639 manuscripts, more than 14 000 rolls, charters and legal documents, 50 000 printed books, 41 000 prints and 350 000 pamphlets. His extravagance eventually led to his ruination and the dispersal of his great collection.
Later, bibliomania became more widespread and created a bubble. At a frenzied auction in 1812, a nobleman named the Marquess of Blandford bought a supposedly unique 1471 edition of Decameron for an eye-popping £2 260. The greatest collector of the age was the 2nd Earl Spencer, a forebear of Princess Diana, who needed five libraries in his home at Althorp House to contain his books.
That collection was sold in 1892 to the widow of a Manchester cotton magnate. The moneyed industrialists became the new bibliophiles. The library was a mark of pedigree that “no arriviste could do without”.
Conversely, shifts in the economic and tax landscapes depleted the wealth of the blue-bloods. Selling off the incunabula was, as Purcell points out, a lot less obvious than unloading the Gainsboroughs and Van Dycks.
It is easy to understand why an antiquarian book holds so much appeal.
Such books are tangible testaments to the skills of the engraver, the printer, the bookbinder, even the tanner.
Today’s keyboards and screens, with all their promise of data, can only be touched. A rare book, by contrast, is felt. – Washington Post