The private library : being a more or less compendious disquisition on the history of the architecture and furnishing of the domestic bookroom

While perhaps not for everyone, this magnificent volume (both in terms of content and production) is a must for anyone who loves libraries, and not just for the books they contain.

The majority of the book describes the developmental history of the private library from earliest times of which we

know, through to the English country home libraries that form the archetype we possess today, and beyond. The scholarly thoroughness is impeccable, but it is conveyed in chatty, personable tones with witty asides and colloquial expressions. The focus is on the architecture of home libraries, and how these were incorporated into the home. If the text has an organizing idea, it is that of the "book-wrapt" environment that private libraries were meant to provide for private study. Recognition that the emotional/psychological/aesthetic experience of residing in a room in which books encompass you from all directions is often overlooked by writers on libraries. This volume shows how powerful that simple realization can be to helping us understand why people love the library, and why, despite the prevalence of the digital format, books and their library homes will continue to endure.

Because private libraries are those around which major institutional libraries are formed, this template helps us to better understand how the great national and academic libraries were formed (although that story is not part of this author's project).

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Fewer

Subjects

Intellectual life History

Library architecture History

Library buildings Design and construction History

Library decoration History

Library fittings and supplies History

1 more

Private libraries History

Fewer

Language

English

Physical description

x, 540 p.; 26.2 cm

ISBN

9781584563884

Copy notes

First edition.
Contents: Introduction: The Domestic Library -- Ancient and Classical Architectures -- The Ur-Libraries: Sumer and Babylon -- Type One Libraries: Egypt and Classical Greece -- Type Two Libraries: Hellenistic Greece and the Roman Republic -- Type Three Libraries: The Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages -- The Middle Ages and the Middle Kingdom -- High and Late Medieval Libraries: Private Reading in Monastery and Palace -- The Renaissance: Experiments Rich and Strange -- Private Libraries in the East -- The English Country House and Its Library -- The Seventeenth-Century Scholar's Library -- The Eighteenth-Century Family Library -- The Nineteenth-Century Social Library -- Parallel Developments -- The Twentieth Century, and the Twenty-First -- Contemporary Private Libraries -- The Future of the Private Library -- Appendix A: The Time Line of the Private Library -- Appendix B: The Library Room Itself -- Appendix C: The Architectural Details of the Library -- Appendix D: Traditional Amenities and Charming Anachronisms.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"This book was set in Adobe Caslon and Franklin Gothic types by Angela Werner and printed on 80lb Silk by King Printing Co., Inc."
Red pictorial dust jacket over black cloth-covered boards.