The invention of rare books : private interest and public memory, 1600-1840 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	McKitterick, David, author.
Imprint:	Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2018. ©2018
Description:	xii, 450 pages ; 26 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Rare books -- Europe -- History. Rare books -- Europe -- Bibliography -- Methodology -- History. Book collecting -- Europe -- History. Book collectors -- Europe -- History. Libraries -- Europe -- History. Book industries and trade -- Europe -- History -- 17th century. Book industries and trade -- Europe -- History -- 18th century. Book industries and trade -- Europe -- History -- 19th century. Book collecting. Book collectors. Book industries and trade. Libraries. Rare books. Rare books -- Bibliography -- Methodology. Europe. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11682793

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781108428323 1108428320
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"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"--

Table of Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Inventio; 2. Books as objects; 3. Survival and selection; 4. Choosing books in Baroque Europe; 5. External appearances (1); 6. External appearances (2); 7. Printers and readers; 8. A seventeenth-century revolution; 9. Concepts of rarity; 10. Developing measures of rarity; 11. Judging appearances by modern standards; 12. The Harleian sales; 13. Authority and rarity; 14. Rarity established; 15. The French bibliographical revolution; 16. Books in turmoil; 17. Bibliophile traditions; 18. Fresh foundations; 19. Public faces, public responsibilities; 20. Conclusion.

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