Lives of the Founders of the British Museum
With Notices of its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570–1870

This is the second in a two-volume work about the founders of the British Museum.

Edward Edwards (Author)

9781108014960, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 June 2010

396 pages, 5 colour illus.
21.6 x 2.2 x 14 cm, 0.5 kg

This two-volume work covers the period 1570–1870, and is one of several written on book collections by Edward Edwards (1812–1886), whose three-volume Memoirs of Libraries is also reissued in this series. Volume 2 looks at some of the early donors of books to the Museum. A chapter is then devoted to the Royal Library of King George III. Finally, Edwards concentrates on the period 1829–1870, giving a general view of the growth of the British Museum under a series of chief librarians, including his own contemporary, Sir Anthony Panizzi. Later chapters look at the donors of items in the ever-growing collection of antiquities, and give an account of the Grenville Library of over 20,000 books, bequeathed to the Museum in 1846 by one of its Trustees.

Book II continued: 3. A group of book-lovers and public benefactors
4. The King's or 'Georgian' Library
its collector, and its donor
5. The founder of the Banksian Museum and Library
Book III. Later Augmentors and Benefactors 1729–1870: 1. General view of the history of the British Museum under Joseph Planta
2. Introduction to Book III (continued) - growth, progress, and internal economy, of the British Mueum under Sir Henry Ellis
3. Introduction to Book III (continued) - growth, progress, and internal economy, of the British Museum under Sir Antonio Panizzi
4. Another group of archaeologists and explorers - the spoils of Xanthus, of Babylon, or Nineveh, of Halicarnassus, and of Cathage
5. The founder of the Grenville Library
6. Other benefactors of recent days
7. Reconstructors and projectors
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]