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*Percy Stafford Allen (1869-1933), Erasmus scholar, President of Corpus Christi College (1924), and Mrs H M Allen, his widow. Bequeathed by Mrs Allen in accordance with the wishes of her husband, in 1953. A collection comprising original editions of the works of Erasmus, and a comprehensive working library of c2,000 items relating to Erasmus, built up by the Allens in the course of editing the Opus epistolarum. The books date from the 16^th-20^th cent, with a wide variety of places of publication, and include a collection of offprints and pamphlets. 'The Allen bequest’, BLR 4(1953), p178-9. Alm. [Almanac]* A collection of almanacs, shelved in chronological sequence. c250 v of all dates, some containing several almanacs. Supplementary to the almanacs in other collections. *Antiq. [Antiquiora]* A shelfmark used between 1883 and 1936 for antiquarian accessions, with subdivision by size, place of printing and date. c4,000 v of the 16^th-18^th cent. *Arch. [Archivium]* Certain categories of books of all periods which, on account of their rarity, value, very small size etc, would be unsuitably placed in the current classification. Sections include: over 800 very rare and valuable books printed in England or printed in English abroad; over 250 foreign books; over 200 fine examples of modern (including 18^th cent) printing, and books printed in very limited editions; c150 books judged to be pornographic but possessing literary merit; c150 examples of early English printing; over 40 examples of important association copies and books with ms. notes; over 110 albums and volumes containing original photographs. *Arch.Antiq.* 250 books of the 18^th and 19^th cent. *Arch.Jur.* 280 v of the 16^th-18^th cent, including editions of Horace. *Arch.Nat. Hist.* c370 works of natural history of the 18^th and 19^th cent. *Arch.Num.* Over 1,200 works on numismatics, mainly 18^th and 19^th cent. *Arch.Seld.* c180 works of the 17^th-19^th cent, and including Spanish books. *Arch.SIGMA* 270 works, mainly Spanish, of the 16^th-18^th cent. *Art. [Artes]* One part of the original Bodleian four-part classification by faculty or subject. Included mathematics, history, philosophy and literature. In use in various forms 1602-1789, and less frequently until c1840. In later years the distribution by faculty began to be disregarded and books were added where there was space on the shelves. Over 8,000 v of the 16^th-early 19^th cent. *Arts.* Over 500 folios and large quartos on arts subjects received among the new books between 1861 and 1883. *AS.* (an arbitrary symbol, formed by analogy with BS.) Used between 1805 and 1820 as a shelfmark for the smaller volumes in quarto. 540 v, some containing several works, of the late-18^th and early-19^th cent, English and foreign, and on all subjects. Back to Index *Elias Ashmole (1617-92), antiquary, founder of the Ashmolean Museum, to which he presented his collections in 1677. The Visitors of the Ashmolean offered all the mss and printed books to the Bodleian in 1858, where they arrived in 1860. The Ashmole collection is in two sequences [MS.] Ashmole 1-1836, containing c1,100 printed books as well as mss, and Ashmole A-H, consisting of 350 printed books. Ashmole 1549-1836 and Ashmole A-H are accessions to Ashmole’s original collection from the libraries of John Aubrey (1626-97), Edward Lhuyd (1660-1709), and Martin Lister (1638-1712), and from the University chemical library founded in 1683. Most of Lister’s books are in the Bodleian collection shelfmarked ‘Lister’ (qv). The printed books (almost 900 in number) fall into two main categories: (a) a collection of contemporary pamphlets, dealing in the main with English political and theological controversy, including Civil War tracts, poems, sermons, newspapers and book catalogues, all collected by Ashmole between 1679 and 1690; (b) a library of astrology, astronomy and kindred topics, including prognostications, ephemerides or astronomical calendars, and a set of almanacs for the years 1571-1690 which, in part duplicates, in part supplements, the more extensive collection of almanacs acquired by gift from Richard Rawlinson, extending from 1607-1747. c146 of Ashmole’s volumes contain the signature of William Lilly (Merlinus Anglicus, 1602-81). Ashmole’s books are bound for the most part, in unornamented brown calf, bearing only Ashmole’s arms in gilt. R T Gunther, ‘The Ashmole printed books’, BQR 6 (1930), p193-5. ‘The Chemical Library of the University’, Ibid p201-3. ‘The Library of John Aubrey, FRS’, Ibid (1931), p230-6. R W Hunt, ‘The cataloguing of Ashmolean collections of books and manuscripts’, BLR 4(1952), p161-70. Craster, p.65-8. Rogers, p.151-8. B F Roberts, ‘Edward Lhuyd’s collection of printed books’, BLR 10(1979), p112-27. M.Hunter [and others], Elias Ashmole 1617-1692...and his world, a tercentenary exhibition, 1983, Oxford, 1983, p.21. Index to the English almanacs in the Ashmole collection (with) Ashmole almanacs (handlist). (MS. Bodleian shelfmark R.6.220). Auct. [Auctarium]* (a room formerly the Anatomy School, now the South West room of the Lower Reading Room) A shelfmark denoting c.7,000 v (including early Bibles, first editions, and other 15^th cent editions of the classics, Aldines, and texts of classical authors annotated with scholia and marginalia), either removed from the older collections at the end of the 18^th or the beginning of the 19^th cent, or added to the Library between then and 194O, and placed in the Auctarium. Back to Index *Thomas Barlow (1607-91), Bodley’s Librarian (1653-60), Provost of The Queen’s College (1657), Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity (1660), Bishop of Lincoln (1675), bequeathed 54 manuscripts and those books in his library not already in the Bodleian (others went to The Queen’s College). The quarto and octavo printed books, particularly rich in tracts and pamphlets of the reign of Charles I and of the Civil Wars and Interregnum and in early theology, many with Barlow’s annotations, are kept under the shelfmark Linc. [Lincolniensis]. These tracts for the times (political, theological, philosophical) were often anonymous, and many of their authors have been identified on Barlow’s testimony.(Some later volumes, not Barlow’s, have been added to Linc., particularly during the 18^th cent. making a total of c.6,000 v.) The folio volumes from Barlow’s library, not numerous, are dispersed amongst other folio volumes. Macray 157-9. Bib. [Bible Collection]* Editions of the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Apocrypha, the Psalms and the Book of Common Prayer, including pre-1850 editions, in all languages, acquired since 1883. Sections sub-divided by language and, in some cases, date. Estimated at over 7,000 v. See also Auct. *William John Birkbeck (1859-1916), theologian and liturgical scholar, who worked for the union of the Anglican and Orthodox Churches. Bequeathed to Magdalen College, and deposited in the Bodleian in 1920, c300 historical and theological works, mostly of the 19^th cent in Slavonic languages. Craster, 283. Philip Bliss (1787-1857), antiquary, Sub-librarian, Bodleian Library (1822-8), University Registrar (1824-53), Keeper of the University Archives (1826-57), Principal of St Mary Hall (1848-57). Bliss bequeathed to the Bodleian his copy of Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses, with many ms additions, but preferred that his library should be sold at auction. At the sale in 1858 the Library bought 745 v of the 16^th-19^th cent, including books printed at Oxford, books printed in London in the three years preceding the Great Fire, works relating to the plague, works relating to the Quakers, works illustrative of Oxford and Oxfordshire, editions of and commentaries on the Psalms, works of royal and noble authors, works of the 16^th and 17^th cent poets, and works illustrative of the characters of men in their various occupations. Bliss entered on the fly-leaf the source of his copy, and frequently added bibliographical notes. The miscellaneous antiquarian collections and bibliographical memoranda which Bliss left behind in the University Archives were transferred to the Bodleian in 1933. Catalogue of..the.. library formed by the late Rev Philip Bliss. .. which will be sold by auction... by Messrs S Leigh Sotheby and John Wilkinson 28 June (9 Aug) 1858. London, 1858. Macray, 367-8. Craster, 64, 71. S Gibson and C J Hindle, Philip Bliss (1787-1857) editor and bibliographer. Bliss’s library’, Oxford Biblio Soc Proc and Papers, 3(1933) 256 - 260. Back to Index Sir George Bowyer 7^th Bart (1811-83), lawyer, presented during the years 1838-43,78 printed volumes and 4 mss of the statutes of Italian cities, chiefly of the 17^th and 18^th cent. He had, in 1838, published his Dissertation on the statutes of the cities of Italy. Macray, 338. BS. [Bibliotheca Seldeniana]* The second general collection in the history of the Library (after the division by the four faculties), started c1668 and added to up to c1840 and originally housed in Selden End. At first it was used for previously un-shelfmarked additions made during 1650-68, the folios being unclassified, the other sizes divided by the four faculty subdivisions (arts, jurisprudence, medicine, theology). During the period 1789-1823 the subdivision by faculties was abandoned. From 1805-20, while BS. was used for the larger of the volumes in quarto, the shelfmark AS. (qv) was used for the smaller volumes in quarto. In the 1830s there was a revival of the classified BS. sequence. The collection comprises over 16,000 v of the 16^th-19^th cent. *Broxbourne* A collection presented in 1978 through the Friends of the National Libraries by Mr John Ehrman (1920 - ) in memory of his father, Albert Ehrman (1890 - 1969), who made the collection. It contains over 4,000 items, and includes over 100 mss, and of the printed books, 140 are incunabula (including many rare or unique single sheets); 104 are STC items; 664 were printed in the 16^th cent and 422 in the 17^th cent. The collection divides into three sections: (a) c2,000 examples of bindings from the 12^th-20^th cent, and from many countries. There is an especially strong group of blind-stamped 16^th cent specimens, and examples of the work of some of the finest contemporary British and French binders. Described as one of the three great English 20^th cent collections of bookbindings by Mr H M Nixon who, in his Broxbourne Library: styles and designs of bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth century, London, 1956, describes a representative selection of the most notable examples from each century; (b) The remarkable collection of book sale catalogues and material for book trade history used for, and listed in, G Pollard and A Ehrman, The distribution of books by Catalogue to 1800, Roxburghe Club, 1965. 347 items are there described, and there are c50 additions. They include the catalogues of printers, publishers, booksellers, auctioneers and libraries. Most of the countries of Europe are represented, and a wide range of book trade practices are illustrated; (c) A binding and printing history reference collection. With indexes of provenances and of types of bindings by country and by binder. The type specimens and related material, comprising books of typographical importance, excellence or curiosity, and works of reference, previously part of the Broxbourne Library, are now in Cambridge University Library. ‘The Broxbourne Library’, BLR 10(1979), p78-80. University of Oxford, Annual Report of the Curators of the Bodleian Library for 1977-78, Supplement no 3 to the University Gazette, June 1979, p41-2. *Thomas Ryburn Buchanan, PC, MP (1846-1911), Fellow of All Souls and Librarian, Codrington Library. His widow allowed the Bodleian and All Souls to make their selection from his library. The collection of c500 printed books, ranging in date from the 15^th-20^th cent, received by the Bodleian in 1941, is notable for its specimens of fine printing and its fine bindings. The bindings are chiefly Scottish and European of the 16^th-19^th cent, including many plain morocco bindings bearing the arms of J A de Thou, and books from the Seillière collection finely bound in red morocco by modern French binders. Craster, p286-7. S Gibson, ‘Bookbindings in the Buchanan collection’, BLR 2(1941), p6-12. M J Sommerlad, Scottish ‘wheel’ and ‘herring-bone’ bindings in the Bodleian Library, Oxford Biblio Soc Occasional Publication no 1, Oxford, 1967. Fine bindings 1500-1700 from Oxford libraries, catalogue of an exhibition. Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1968. Robert Burton (1577-1640), Student of Christ Church (1599), author of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), bequeathed his books to the Bodleian, duplicates of books already there to be passed on to Christ Church. 581 volumes (nearly 900 titles) were selected for the Bodleian, including some theology, but also works by most of the great names of Elizabethan literature (including Shakespeare), pamphlets, jest-books, newsbooks, ie just those sort of books which Sir Thomas Bodley had rejected. Of the books selected, 556 were English, many literary works including 48 books now listed as unique copies. The majority of the books (750 titles) are still in the Library, chiefly in the classes shelfmarked 4^o Art., Th., and Art.BS., but a number were disposed of as duplicates. Macray 90-2. Philip 33. Sir W Osler, ‘The Library of Robert Burton’, Oxford Biblio Soc Proc and Papers 1 (1926), p182-90. ‘Two lists of Burton’s books, ed by S Gibson and F R Needham’, Ibid p222-46. (Copy in the Bodleian annotated with Bodleian shelfmarks, shelfmark 2590 d.Oxf. la.34 = R.6.234). The Bodleian Library in the seventeenth century: guide to an exhibition, Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1951, p16, 41. N. K. Kiessling, The Library of Robert Burton, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, new series, vol.22. Oxford, 1983. N. K. Kiessling, The legacy of Democritus Junior, Robert Burton. An exhibition to commemorate the 350^th anniversary of the death of Robert Burton (1577-1640). Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1990. Edward John Mawby Buxton (1912 - 1989), Fellow of New College, Oxford, Reader in English Literature, Oxford University, bequeathed to the Bodleian those books of his it would like to have, as well as his working papers, correspondence and diaries. The Library took complete his collection of his favourite authors (notably, Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Charles Cotton and P. B. Shelley) and selected other books not already in the Bodleian, mainly works of English literature, including a number of volumes and pamphlets of modern literature and Buxton’s own copies of books written or edited by him. C. Hurst, [John Buxton’s library], BLR XIV, 1 (October 1991) 92-3. Back to Index Ingram Bywater (1840-1914), Fellow of Exeter College 1863, Sub-Librarian, Bodleian Library 1879, Regius Professor of Greek 1893-1908, bequeathed c4,000 v, listed in the privately printed Elenchus vetustiorum apud * [I Bywater] hospitantium, 1911 and in an interleaved copy of acquisitions to his library from 1911 to his death. Bywater chose his books to illustrate the history of classical learning from Bessarion down to the immediate successors of Scaliger and Casaubon, and insisted on fine condition. The collection contains the names of the great, and many of the obscurer, European humanists of the 16^th and early-17^th cent. Aristotle and his commentators are well represented. c50 books have ms marginalia by scholars, near 200 are autographed, and c50 bear the arms of De Thou on their bindings. Most of the books are pre 1650, including c150 incunabula (31 of them Greek), and over 1,100 books (459 of them Greek) were printed in the first half of the 16^th cent, a third of these by Paris presses. In addition the Library acquired some 64 vols. of ms. material, including Bywater’s correspondence with eminent European scholars. Craster 281-2. ‘The Bywater Collection’, BQR 1 (1915), 80-1. W W Jackson, Ingram Bywater, the memoir of an Oxford Scholar, 1840-1914, Oxford, 1917. *Bywater adds.* Miriam Robinette (‘Robin’) Tomkinson (1916 - 86), a classicist and book collector, presented to the Bodleian in December 1984 a group of fine printed books, the majority editions of classical texts, some with interesting provenances and in fine bindings, and on her death the Library was able to select from her remaining books a further thirty-seven printed items, reflecting as well as her love for early printed classical texts, her affection for birds, her wide reading, and pride in her extensive and cultured ancestry (Ingram Bywater was her great-great-uncle by marriage). G. Groom, [Miss M R Tomkinson’s gift of printed books], BLR, XII, 2 (April 1986) 145-7. ‘Miriam Robinette (‘Robin’) Tomkinson (1916-1986)’, BLR, XII, 4 (April 1987) 253-4. Back to Index *Caps.* A shelfmark used in the period 1860-83 for antiquarian accessions of folios and large quartos. 550 v of the 16^th-19^th cent. *John Waynflete Carter (1905-75)* The collection purchased in 1951 from John Carter and added to from time to time, consists of over 350 v ranging in date from 1702 to the present day, and illustrates the history of publishers’ binding during the 19^th cent. Most of the books are bound in cloth, though others are bound in silk, plush, wood and even metal, some of the gift-book type being elaborate and ornate. Card cat under author, with descriptions of the bindings, an index of the binders’ names (when known), and a selective subject index. Carter later presented the file of his rubbings and notes compiled in the preparation of his books Binding variants in English publishing 1820-1900 (1932) and More binding variants (1938). ‘The Carter collection of publishers’ bindings’, BLR 8 (1967), 5-6. *Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary (1888-1957), novelist. Cary’s library of over 2,000 printed books and mss was presented to the Bodleian through Bodley’s American Friends in 1957 by James Marshall Osborn (1906-76). The printed books comprise works by Cary, including articles, short stories etc in periodicals, translations and proofs; works or items about Cary; books presented by their authors to Cary; books (some presented) annotated by Cary; the residue of Cary’s library, eg books on Africa, India etc; works of English literature; works of foreign literature; works on art; works on history etc. Osborn presented also Cary’s literary papers. Books added or published after the date of the original collection are shelfmarked Cary adds. D G Neill, ‘The Joyce Cary collection at the Bodleian Library’, Books no 321 (Jan-Feb 1959), p7-11. Back to Index Simon J Castello, a Director of Allied Provincial Securities, is donating his collection of the work of Arthur Rackham (1869-1939), one of the greatest English book illustrators, including signed, limited editions, some with original artwork. G. Groom, [The Castello collection of Arthur Rackham]. BLR, XIV, 1 (October 1991) 91. Clarendon Press* A collection of c2,000 v consisting of (a) Books published by the Clarendon Press from 1720-1892, arranged according to subject (theology, medicine, arts and trades, mathematics and physics, law, history, Greek prose, Greek verse, Greek commentaries, Latin prose, Latin verse, Latin commentaries, philology), shelfmarked Clar.Press la.1-66c.10; (b) 200 books of the 16^th-19^th cent chiefly texts of the classics and of the Fathers, and including Septuagint and Greek patristic texts from the library of Dr Robert Holmes (d1805), deposited in the Bodleian by the Delegates of the University Press in 1885 and presented outright in 1922. Shelfmarked Clar.Press b.1-e.123. The strength of the early 19^th cent section lies in the classical texts with ms editorial annotations; in addition, (c) c1,000 Clarendon Press file copies (for the use of the Secretary to the Delegates) of books printed in the 18^th and 19^th cent., and mostly bound at the time in original boards or cloth bindings, deposited on permanent loan in the Bodleian by the University Press. (Not yet catalogued and shelfmarked.) See also [Oxford University Press collection of type specimens]; [Printer’s library]. *Nathaniel Crynes (1688-1745)* Fellow of St John’s College and Superior Bedel of Arts (1716), bequeathed to the Bodleian all such books out of his own collections as the Library did not already possess. 968 v in octavo and smaller sizes, with a few quartos, dating from the 16^th-18^th cent, many very rare, were kept by the Bodleian. The Crynes collection has a wide range of historical material which supplemented the Bodleian collections in a significant way: Crynes, in addition to much rare English work, collected particularly those 16^th c. octavo European editions which had been overlooked in favour of the larger folio volumes preferred by Bodley himself.The rest of his books went to St John’s College, and some to Balliol College. Macray 220. Philip 84. *George Nathaniel, Marquis Curzon of Kedleston (1859-1925)*, Foreign Secretary 1919-24, Chancellor of Oxford University 1907. A collection of c330 works on Napoleon bequeathed by Lord Curzon, originally brought together by AM Broadley, bought at the sale of his books in 1916 and added to by Lord Curzon. It relates in the main to Napoleon’s captivity on St Helena, but also includes sets of The Life of Napoleon I by J Holland Rose and Napoleon: the last phase by the Earl of Rosebery, extra-illustrated by A M Broadley, 1905, and of A M Broadley’s Napoleon in caricature 1795-1821, 1911, extra-illustrated by A Brewis, all three grangerized into 39 folio volumes, illustrated by the addition of thousands of portraits, views, contemporary caricatures, broadsides, autograph letters and original drawings, covering the whole Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. J M Thompson, Curzon collection: index to autographs and portraits, 1928. (Typescript, Bodleian shelfmark MS. Curzon d.3=R.6.85) Craster 284. A catalogue of the.. .collection of Napoleonic books, autographs and engravings formed by the late A M Broadley... sold by auction by Messrs Hodgson & Co., 7-8 December, 1916. Back to Index

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Percy Stafford Allen (1869-1933), Erasmus scholar, President of Corpus Christi College (1924), and Mrs H M Allen, his widow. Bequeathed by Mrs Allen in accordance with the wishes of her husband, in 1953. A collection comprising original editions of the works of Erasmus, and a comprehensive working library of c2,000 items relating to Erasmus, built up by the Allens in the course of editing the Opus epistolarum. The books date from the 16^th-20^th cent, with a wide variety of places of publication, and include a collection of offprints and pamphlets.

'The Allen bequest’, BLR 4(1953), p178-9.

Alm. [Almanac] A collection of almanacs, shelved in chronological sequence. c250 v of all dates, some containing several almanacs. Supplementary to the almanacs in other collections.

Antiq. [Antiquiora] A shelfmark used between 1883 and 1936 for antiquarian accessions, with subdivision by size, place of printing and date. c4,000 v of the 16^th-18^th cent.

Arch. [Archivium] Certain categories of books of all periods which, on account of their rarity, value, very small size etc, would be unsuitably placed in the current classification. Sections include: over 800 very rare and valuable books printed in England or printed in English abroad; over 250 foreign books; over 200 fine examples of modern (including 18^th cent) printing, and books printed in very limited editions; c150 books judged to be pornographic but possessing literary merit; c150 examples of early English printing; over 40 examples of important association copies and books with ms. notes; over 110 albums and volumes containing original photographs.

Arch.Antiq. 250 books of the 18^th and 19^th cent.

Arch.Jur. 280 v of the 16^th-18^th cent, including editions of Horace.

Arch.Nat. Hist. c370 works of natural history of the 18^th and 19^th cent.

Arch.Num. Over 1,200 works on numismatics, mainly 18^th and 19^th cent.

Arch.Seld. c180 works of the 17^th-19^th cent, and including Spanish books.

Arch.SIGMA 270 works, mainly Spanish, of the 16^th-18^th cent.

Art. [Artes] One part of the original Bodleian four-part classification by faculty or subject. Included mathematics, history, philosophy and literature. In use in various forms 1602-1789, and less frequently until c1840. In later years the distribution by faculty began to be disregarded and books were added where there was space on the shelves. Over 8,000 v of the 16^th-early 19^th cent.

Arts. Over 500 folios and large quartos on arts subjects received among the new books between 1861 and 1883.

AS. (an arbitrary symbol, formed by analogy with BS.) Used between 1805 and 1820 as a shelfmark for the smaller volumes in quarto. 540 v, some containing several works, of the late-18^th and early-19^th cent, English and foreign, and on all subjects.

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Elias Ashmole (1617-92), antiquary, founder of the Ashmolean Museum, to which he presented his collections in 1677. The Visitors of the Ashmolean offered all the mss and printed books to the Bodleian in 1858, where they arrived in 1860. The Ashmole collection is in two sequences [MS.] Ashmole 1-1836, containing c1,100 printed books as well as mss, and Ashmole A-H, consisting of 350 printed books. Ashmole 1549-1836 and Ashmole A-H are accessions to Ashmole’s original collection from the libraries of John Aubrey (1626-97), Edward Lhuyd (1660-1709), and Martin Lister (1638-1712), and from the University chemical library founded in 1683. Most of Lister’s books are in the Bodleian collection shelfmarked ‘Lister’ (qv). The printed books (almost 900 in number) fall into two main categories: (a) a collection of contemporary pamphlets, dealing in the main with English political and theological controversy, including Civil War tracts, poems, sermons, newspapers and book catalogues, all collected by Ashmole between 1679 and 1690; (b) a library of astrology, astronomy and kindred topics, including prognostications, ephemerides or astronomical calendars, and a set of almanacs for the years 1571-1690 which, in part duplicates, in part supplements, the more extensive collection of almanacs acquired by gift from Richard Rawlinson, extending from 1607-1747. c146 of Ashmole’s volumes contain the signature of William Lilly (Merlinus Anglicus, 1602-81). Ashmole’s books are bound for the most part, in unornamented brown calf, bearing only Ashmole’s arms in gilt.

R T Gunther, ‘The Ashmole printed books’, BQR 6 (1930), p193-5.
‘The Chemical Library of the University’, Ibid p201-3.
‘The Library of John Aubrey, FRS’, Ibid (1931), p230-6.
R W Hunt, ‘The cataloguing of Ashmolean collections of books and manuscripts’, BLR 4(1952), p161-70.
Craster, p.65-8.
Rogers, p.151-8.
B F Roberts, ‘Edward Lhuyd’s collection of printed books’, BLR 10(1979), p112-27.
M.Hunter [and others], Elias Ashmole 1617-1692...and his world, a tercentenary exhibition, 1983, Oxford, 1983, p.21.
Index to the English almanacs in the Ashmole collection (with) Ashmole almanacs (handlist). (MS. Bodleian shelfmark R.6.220).

Auct. [Auctarium] (a room formerly the Anatomy School, now the South West room of the Lower Reading Room) A shelfmark denoting c.7,000 v (including early Bibles, first editions, and other 15^th cent editions of the classics, Aldines, and texts of classical authors annotated with scholia and marginalia), either removed from the older collections at the end of the 18^th or the beginning of the 19^th cent, or added to the Library between then and 194O, and placed in the Auctarium.

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Thomas Barlow (1607-91), Bodley’s Librarian (1653-60), Provost of The Queen’s College (1657), Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity (1660), Bishop of Lincoln (1675), bequeathed 54 manuscripts and those books in his library not already in the Bodleian (others went to The Queen’s College). The quarto and octavo printed books, particularly rich in tracts and pamphlets of the reign of Charles I and of the Civil Wars and Interregnum and in early theology, many with Barlow’s annotations, are kept under the shelfmark Linc. [Lincolniensis]. These tracts for the times (political, theological, philosophical) were often anonymous, and many of their authors have been identified on Barlow’s testimony.(Some later volumes, not Barlow’s, have been added to Linc., particularly during the 18^th cent. making a total of c.6,000 v.) The folio volumes from Barlow’s library, not numerous, are dispersed amongst other folio volumes.

Macray 157-9.

Bib. [Bible Collection] Editions of the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Apocrypha, the Psalms and the Book of Common Prayer, including pre-1850 editions, in all languages, acquired since 1883. Sections sub-divided by language and, in some cases, date. Estimated at over 7,000 v.

See also Auct.

William John Birkbeck (1859-1916), theologian and liturgical scholar, who worked for the union of the Anglican and Orthodox Churches. Bequeathed to Magdalen College, and deposited in the Bodleian in 1920, c300 historical and theological works, mostly of the 19^th cent in Slavonic languages.

Craster, 283.

Philip Bliss (1787-1857), antiquary, Sub-librarian, Bodleian Library (1822-8), University Registrar (1824-53), Keeper of the University Archives (1826-57), Principal of St Mary Hall (1848-57). Bliss bequeathed to the Bodleian his copy of Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses, with many ms additions, but preferred that his library should be sold at auction. At the sale in 1858 the Library bought 745 v of the 16^th-19^th cent, including books printed at Oxford, books printed in London in the three years preceding the Great Fire, works relating to the plague, works relating to the Quakers, works illustrative of Oxford and Oxfordshire, editions of and commentaries on the Psalms, works of royal and noble authors, works of the 16^th and 17^th cent poets, and works illustrative of the characters of men in their various occupations. Bliss entered on the fly-leaf the source of his copy, and frequently added bibliographical notes. The miscellaneous antiquarian collections and bibliographical memoranda which Bliss left behind in the University Archives were transferred to the Bodleian in 1933.

Catalogue of..the.. library formed by the late Rev Philip Bliss. .. which will be sold by auction... by Messrs S Leigh Sotheby and John Wilkinson 28 June (9 Aug) 1858. London, 1858.
Macray, 367-8.
Craster, 64, 71.
S Gibson and C J Hindle, Philip Bliss (1787-1857) editor and bibliographer. Bliss’s library’, Oxford Biblio Soc Proc and Papers, 3(1933) 256 - 260.

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Sir George Bowyer 7^th Bart (1811-83), lawyer, presented during the years 1838-43,78 printed volumes and 4 mss of the statutes of Italian cities, chiefly of the 17^th and 18^th cent. He had, in 1838, published his Dissertation on the statutes of the cities of Italy.

Macray, 338.

BS. [Bibliotheca Seldeniana] The second general collection in the history of the Library (after the division by the four faculties), started c1668 and added to up to c1840 and originally housed in Selden End. At first it was used for previously un-shelfmarked additions made during 1650-68, the folios being unclassified, the other sizes divided by the four faculty subdivisions (arts, jurisprudence, medicine, theology). During the period 1789-1823 the subdivision by faculties was abandoned. From 1805-20, while BS. was used for the larger of the volumes in quarto, the shelfmark AS. (qv) was used for the smaller volumes in quarto. In the 1830s there was a revival of the classified BS. sequence. The collection comprises over 16,000 v of the 16^th-19^th cent.

Broxbourne A collection presented in 1978 through the Friends of the National Libraries by Mr John Ehrman (1920 - ) in memory of his father, Albert Ehrman (1890 - 1969), who made the collection. It contains over 4,000 items, and includes over 100 mss, and of the printed books, 140 are incunabula (including many rare or unique single sheets); 104 are STC items; 664 were printed in the 16^th cent and 422 in the 17^th cent. The collection divides into three sections: (a) c2,000 examples of bindings from the 12^th-20^th cent, and from many countries. There is an especially strong group of blind-stamped 16^th cent specimens, and examples of the work of some of the finest contemporary British and French binders. Described as one of the three great English 20^th cent collections of bookbindings by Mr H M Nixon who, in his Broxbourne Library: styles and designs of bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth century, London, 1956, describes a representative selection of the most notable examples from each century; (b) The remarkable collection of book sale catalogues and material for book trade history used for, and listed in, G Pollard and A Ehrman, The distribution of books by Catalogue to 1800, Roxburghe Club, 1965. 347 items are there described, and there are c50 additions. They include the catalogues of printers, publishers, booksellers, auctioneers and libraries. Most of the countries of Europe are represented, and a wide range of book trade practices are illustrated; (c) A binding and printing history reference collection.

With indexes of provenances and of types of bindings by country and by binder.

The type specimens and related material, comprising books of typographical importance, excellence or curiosity, and works of reference, previously part of the Broxbourne Library, are now in Cambridge University Library.

‘The Broxbourne Library’, BLR 10(1979), p78-80. University of Oxford, Annual Report of the Curators of the Bodleian Library for 1977-78, Supplement no 3 to the University Gazette, June 1979, p41-2.

Thomas Ryburn Buchanan, PC, MP (1846-1911), Fellow of All Souls and Librarian, Codrington Library. His widow allowed the Bodleian and All Souls to make their selection from his library. The collection of c500 printed books, ranging in date from the 15^th-20^th cent, received by the Bodleian in 1941, is notable for its specimens of fine printing and its fine bindings. The bindings are chiefly Scottish and European of the 16^th-19^th cent, including many plain morocco bindings bearing the arms of J A de Thou, and books from the Seillière collection finely bound in red morocco by modern French binders.

Craster, p286-7.
S Gibson, ‘Bookbindings in the Buchanan collection’, BLR 2(1941), p6-12.
M J Sommerlad, Scottish ‘wheel’ and ‘herring-bone’ bindings in the Bodleian Library, Oxford Biblio Soc Occasional Publication no 1, Oxford, 1967.
Fine bindings 1500-1700 from Oxford libraries, catalogue of an exhibition. Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1968.

Robert Burton (1577-1640), Student of Christ Church (1599), author of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), bequeathed his books to the Bodleian, duplicates of books already there to be passed on to Christ Church. 581 volumes (nearly 900 titles) were selected for the Bodleian, including some theology, but also works by most of the great names of Elizabethan literature (including Shakespeare), pamphlets, jest-books, newsbooks, ie just those sort of books which Sir Thomas Bodley had rejected. Of the books selected, 556 were English, many literary works including 48 books now listed as unique copies. The majority of the books (750 titles) are still in the Library, chiefly in the classes shelfmarked 4^o Art., Th., and Art.BS., but a number were disposed of as duplicates.

Macray 90-2.
Philip 33.
Sir W Osler, ‘The Library of Robert Burton’, Oxford Biblio Soc Proc and Papers 1 (1926), p182-90.
‘Two lists of Burton’s books, ed by S Gibson and F R Needham’, Ibid p222-46. (Copy in the Bodleian annotated with Bodleian shelfmarks, shelfmark 2590 d.Oxf. la.34 = R.6.234).
The Bodleian Library in the seventeenth century: guide to an exhibition, Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1951, p16, 41.
N. K. Kiessling, The Library of Robert Burton, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, new series, vol.22. Oxford, 1983.
N. K. Kiessling, The legacy of Democritus Junior, Robert Burton. An exhibition to commemorate the 350^th anniversary of the death of Robert Burton (1577-1640). Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1990.

Edward John Mawby Buxton (1912 - 1989), Fellow of New College, Oxford, Reader in English Literature, Oxford University, bequeathed to the Bodleian those books of his it would like to have, as well as his working papers, correspondence and diaries. The Library took complete his collection of his favourite authors (notably, Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Charles Cotton and P. B. Shelley) and selected other books not already in the Bodleian, mainly works of English literature, including a number of volumes and pamphlets of modern literature and Buxton’s own copies of books written or edited by him.

C. Hurst, [John Buxton’s library], BLR XIV, 1 (October 1991) 92-3.

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Ingram Bywater (1840-1914), Fellow of Exeter College 1863, Sub-Librarian, Bodleian Library 1879, Regius Professor of Greek 1893-1908, bequeathed c4,000 v, listed in the privately printed Elenchus vetustiorum apud* * [I Bywater] hospitantium, 1911 and in an interleaved copy of acquisitions to his library from 1911 to his death. Bywater chose his books to illustrate the history of classical learning from Bessarion down to the immediate successors of Scaliger and Casaubon, and insisted on fine condition. The collection contains the names of the great, and many of the obscurer, European humanists of the 16^th and early-17^th cent. Aristotle and his commentators are well represented. c50 books have ms marginalia by scholars, near 200 are autographed, and c50 bear the arms of De Thou on their bindings. Most of the books are pre 1650, including c150 incunabula (31 of them Greek), and over 1,100 books (459 of them Greek) were printed in the first half of the 16^th cent, a third of these by Paris presses. In addition the Library acquired some 64 vols. of ms. material, including Bywater’s correspondence with eminent European scholars.

Craster 281-2.
‘The Bywater Collection’, BQR 1 (1915), 80-1.
W W Jackson, Ingram Bywater, the memoir of an Oxford Scholar, 1840-1914, Oxford, 1917.

Bywater adds.

Miriam Robinette (‘Robin’) Tomkinson (1916 - 86), a classicist and book collector, presented to the Bodleian in December 1984 a group of fine printed books, the majority editions of classical texts, some with interesting provenances and in fine bindings, and on her death the Library was able to select from her remaining books a further thirty-seven printed items, reflecting as well as her love for early printed classical texts, her affection for birds, her wide reading, and pride in her extensive and cultured ancestry (Ingram Bywater was her great-great-uncle by marriage).

G. Groom, [Miss M R Tomkinson’s gift of printed books], BLR, XII, 2 (April 1986) 145-7.
‘Miriam Robinette (‘Robin’) Tomkinson (1916-1986)’, BLR, XII, 4 (April 1987) 253-4.

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Caps. A shelfmark used in the period 1860-83 for antiquarian accessions of folios and large quartos. 550 v of the 16^th-19^th cent.

John Waynflete Carter (1905-75) The collection purchased in 1951 from John Carter and added to from time to time, consists of over 350 v ranging in date from 1702 to the present day, and illustrates the history of publishers’ binding during the 19^th cent. Most of the books are bound in cloth, though others are bound in silk, plush, wood and even metal, some of the gift-book type being elaborate and ornate.

Card cat under author, with descriptions of the bindings, an index of the binders’ names (when known), and a selective subject index. Carter later presented the file of his rubbings and notes compiled in the preparation of his books Binding variants in English publishing 1820-1900 (1932) and More binding variants (1938).

‘The Carter collection of publishers’ bindings’, BLR 8 (1967), 5-6.

Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary (1888-1957), novelist. Cary’s library of over 2,000 printed books and mss was presented to the Bodleian through Bodley’s American Friends in 1957 by James Marshall Osborn (1906-76). The printed books comprise works by Cary, including articles, short stories etc in periodicals, translations and proofs; works or items about Cary; books presented by their authors to Cary; books (some presented) annotated by Cary; the residue of Cary’s library, eg books on Africa, India etc; works of English literature; works of foreign literature; works on art; works on history etc. Osborn presented also Cary’s literary papers. Books added or published after the date of the original collection are shelfmarked Cary adds.

D G Neill, ‘The Joyce Cary collection at the Bodleian Library’, Books no 321 (Jan-Feb 1959), p7-11.

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Simon J Castello, a Director of Allied Provincial Securities, is donating his collection of the work of Arthur Rackham (1869-1939), one of the greatest English book illustrators, including signed, limited editions, some with original artwork.

G. Groom, [The Castello collection of Arthur Rackham]. BLR, XIV, 1 (October 1991) 91.

Clarendon Press A collection of c2,000 v consisting of (a) Books published by the Clarendon Press from 1720-1892, arranged according to subject (theology, medicine, arts and trades, mathematics and physics, law, history, Greek prose, Greek verse, Greek commentaries, Latin prose, Latin verse, Latin commentaries, philology), shelfmarked Clar.Press la.1-66c.10; (b) 200 books of the 16^th-19^th cent chiefly texts of the classics and of the Fathers, and including Septuagint and Greek patristic texts from the library of Dr Robert Holmes (d1805), deposited in the Bodleian by the Delegates of the University Press in 1885 and presented outright in 1922. Shelfmarked Clar.Press b.1-e.123. The strength of the early 19^th cent section lies in the classical texts with ms editorial annotations; in addition, (c) c1,000 Clarendon Press file copies (for the use of the Secretary to the Delegates) of books printed in the 18^th and 19^th cent., and mostly bound at the time in original boards or cloth bindings, deposited on permanent loan in the Bodleian by the University Press. (Not yet catalogued and shelfmarked.)

See also [Oxford University Press collection of type specimens]; [Printer’s library].

Nathaniel Crynes (1688-1745) Fellow of St John’s College and Superior Bedel of Arts (1716), bequeathed to the Bodleian all such books out of his own collections as the Library did not already possess. 968 v in octavo and smaller sizes, with a few quartos, dating from the 16^th-18^th cent, many very rare, were kept by the Bodleian. The Crynes collection has a wide range of historical material which supplemented the Bodleian collections in a significant way: Crynes, in addition to much rare English work, collected particularly those 16^th c. octavo European editions which had been overlooked in favour of the larger folio volumes preferred by Bodley himself.The rest of his books went to St John’s College, and some to Balliol College.

Macray 220.
Philip 84.

George Nathaniel, Marquis Curzon of Kedleston (1859-1925), Foreign Secretary 1919-24, Chancellor of Oxford University 1907. A collection of c330 works on Napoleon bequeathed by Lord Curzon, originally brought together by AM Broadley, bought at the sale of his books in 1916 and added to by Lord Curzon. It relates in the main to Napoleon’s captivity on St Helena, but also includes sets of The Life of Napoleon I by J Holland Rose and Napoleon: the last phase by the Earl of Rosebery, extra-illustrated by A M Broadley, 1905, and of A M Broadley’s Napoleon in caricature 1795-1821, 1911, extra-illustrated by A Brewis, all three grangerized into 39 folio volumes, illustrated by the addition of thousands of portraits, views, contemporary caricatures, broadsides, autograph letters and original drawings, covering the whole Revolutionary and Napoleonic period.

J M Thompson, Curzon collection: index to autographs and portraits, 1928. (Typescript, Bodleian shelfmark MS. Curzon d.3=R.6.85)
Craster 284.
A catalogue of the.. .collection of Napoleonic books, autographs and engravings formed by the late A M Broadley... sold by auction by Messrs Hodgson & Co., 7-8 December, 1916.

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