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[DELTA] A collection of over 5,000 v of the 16th- 19th cent, the various sections being used for both English and foreign books in quarto between 1824 and 1861, for folio volumes between 1840 and 1861, and for older books in folio and large quarto between 1861 and 1883. Denyer A collection of 21 English 16th cent Bibles including Coverdale, Cranmer, Tyndale and Grafton, and of 21 English theological works, nearly all printed before 1600. Bequeathed in 1825 by Mrs Eliza D Denyer, widow of John Denyer (d1806).
Dobell 450 v acquired in 1972 from Mrs Rosemary Dobell, being the collections of Bertram Dobell (1842-1914) bookseller and man of letters and his sons P J and E A Dobell, booksellers and publishers of Tunbridge Wells and London, largely works written or published by them, including proofs, trial copies, variant issues, etc, dating from 1885 up to the 1930s, sets of their catalogues, 1876-1916, copies of books presented to them up to 1957, and books with ms notes by them.
Francis Douce (1757-1834) antiquary, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum 1807-11. Bequeathed over 19,000 v of printed books of all periods, including 479 incunabula (largely romances, histories and liturgical books) and including 15 items printed by Caxton; block books and books printed on vellum; Bibles, Horae, Primers, Books of Common Prayer, Psalters; early-printed editions of Medieval romances, and editions of the popularized versions of the 16th and 17th cent; editions of novels and tales, including editions of works of lighter French fiction, original and translated, of the 17th and 18th cent, amorous and facetious tales and ‘contes galantes’; original and early editions of 17th and 18th cent English drama (foreign drama is less well represented); a collection of poems, songs and ballads, including a remarkable collection of broadside ballads of the second half of the 17th, of the 18th and early 19th cent; chapbooks and children’s books of the 18th and early 19th cent; almanacs and prognostications covering the period 1674-1771 (supplementing the Rawlinson and Ashmole collections), with some from earlier years; fragments of works by early English printers; volumes especially noteworthy as examples of the engraver’s art; sale catalogues, with notes of his purchases and the prices he paid; books in fine bindings, especially French bindings; bindings (loose covers, mainly 16th cent blind-stamped and gold-tooled). Douce’s collection is strong in history, biography, antiquities, manners, customs, the fine arts, travel, archaeology, witchcraft, and the ‘Dance of Death’, and in foreign books. In addition to the printed books, Douce’s bequest included some 420 manuscripts (of which two thirds are Medieval or 16th c., bought chiefly for their illumination, including Books of Hours, French romances and early English literature), woodblocks, prints, drawings, coins, playing cards. Most of the prints, the drawings and the coins are now in the Ashmolean Museum; only those prints belonging to, or closely connected with books as distinct from pure art, were retained in the Bodleian. The Library now also preserves Douce’s correspondence and a series of notebooks kept by him for most of the later half of his collecting life. The shelfmark Douce Adds. was in use c1834-80, largely for retrospective accessions of children’s books, chapbooks and similar ephemeral literature and includes some specimens of early printing, and some material from Douce’s own collections, including Douce’s albums of early printed initials, devices and title-pages, many removed from his own books. There is a total of 333 v representing a larger number of bibliographical items, of the 18th and 19th cent.
Dunston Collection. In 1981 Miss Emma Frederica Isabella Dunston, of Burltons, Donhead St Mary, Wiltshire, the last surviving member of an extraordinary family of book collectors, botanists, mycologists and photographers, bequeathed her books to the University of Oxford, which had been alma mater to her father and brothers. c. 8,000 books. Main categories: early books and classics; English literature - over half the collection - comprising works of the mainstream English poets, dramatists and novelists of the late 17th to the early 20th centuries, including special collections of several writers - Browning, Butler, Byron, Pope, Scott (nearly 1,000 vols.), Tennyson, and over 300 children’s books, mostly from the first half of the 19th century; manuscripts and printed books by William Roscoe (1753-1831); and natural history, mainly botany. Includes books in original condition, association copies, and ephemera. The originator of the collection was F W Dunston (1850-1915).
Judge Robert Paul Eckert (d1966) biographer and bibliographer of the Oxford poet Philip Edward Thomas (1878-1917), bequeathed 190 works previously owned by Thomas or written by or about Thomas.
Frederic Sutherland Ferguson (1878-1967), bibliographer, and Director of Bernard Quaritch Ltd. A collection of 220 Scottish books, mainly of the 17th cent, some of the 16th cent, bequeathed in 1967. The Bodleian was given second choice after the National Library of Scotland. Sir Charles Harding Firth (1857-1936) Fellow of All Souls (1902), Regius Professor of Modern History (1904), the editor of Clarendon’s History. Part of his library donated by his widow. The 380 v of printed material include 24 v of printed portraits and caricatures illustrative of English history from c1603-c1830, the main series arranged chronologically; c20 v of broadside poems and ballads of the second half of the 17th, the 18th and early 19th cent, largely arranged by subject, including those on political, naval and military topics (Bodley also has Firth’s ms and typewritten transcripts and notes); 4 v of proclamations and other broadsides of the 17th and 18th cent; c100 v of miscellaneous literature, including chap-books, song garlands, and other popular literature of the 18th and early 19th cent; poetical pamphlets of the second half of the 17th and the 18th cent; 84 v of political tracts, mostly of the latter half of the 17th cent; mid-17th cent newspapers and newsbooks. The remainder of Firth’s collections are at Worcester College, Oxford, and the University of Sheffield.
Strickland Gibson (1877-1958), Keeper of Printed Books, Bodleian Library (1942). A collection of over 400 items presented by him (and added to since then) to provide illustrative material for the study of every stage of the process of making a printed book, for use in his course on bibliography. Though chiefly intended for the study of English books printed on a hand-press, it contains some examples of the work of a number of European printers before 1500, with a few examples of the work of modern presses, and a small collection on typography. Included are specimens of printer’s copy, of proof sheets, of methods of imposition, of cancels etc and samples of all kinds of wrappers and bindings. More than half of the printed volumes consist of Gibson’s own collection of bindings. There are few rare books, but some volumes are of interest for their inscriptions or annotations, or because of their provenance.
William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), statesman and author. 256 pamphlets on Homeric subjects, mainly 19th cent from his library, presented in 1923 by Henry N Gladstone. The rest of his library is at St Deiniol’s, Hawarden (qv).
Richard Gough (1735-1809), antiquary, bibliographer, topographer, Director of the Society of Antiquaries (1771-97), bequeathed to the Bodleian upwards of 3,700 v, many annotated by him and with printed insertions, comprising: (a) all his topographical collections of maps, topographical prints, drawings etc arranged under the names of the counties of the British Isles (shelfmarked Gough maps 1-260) and over 2,500 printed books arranged under the headings of General topography, Ecclesiastical topography, Natural history, and the counties of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They are mostly 18th cent, but include some of the 16th, 17th and early 19th cent. Included are his interleaved copies of his British Topography (the 1780 edition, comprising his collections for a third edition), of his Sepulchral monuments of Great Britain (1786-99), and of his edition of Camden’s Britannia (1789). c250 book prospectuses printed pre-1801, many for antiquarian and topographical works, are to be found, some pasted into the volumes to which they relate, some in his working notes and manuscript collections, many in his collection for a third edition of his British topography; (b) 227 printed volumes connected with Anglo-Saxon literature and that of the Scandinavian races generally, mainly of the 18th cent; (c) Over 200 printed service books of the English church before the Reformation, (many of Sarum or York use) including Missals, Breviaries, Manuals, Hours, Graduals, Psalters, Processionals, Hymns, Primers, and a few manuscripts, chiefly Horae; (d) 16 large folio volumes of coloured drawings of monuments in the Churches of France, (detached from a large collection of drawings of royal and other monuments and tombs made by Francis Roger de Gaignières); (e) 400 copper plates, used mainly for his Sepulchral monuments of Great Britain; (f) Mss, including much unpublished topographical material by Gough himself, and his diary for 1747-51 and 1755-73. Gough’s books included many volumes from the libraries of Ducarel, Lort, Blomefield, Peter Le Neve, Hutchins, West and others. The miscellaneous part of his library was sold by public auction in 1810.
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