RENAISSANCE COMMONPLACE BOOKS FROM THE SLOANE COLLECTION AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY

‘Only in recent years have scholars turned to the rich quarry of manuscript commonplace books, and they have still to come to terms with the variety, brilliance, and quirkiness of the intellectual habits they document.’

Dr William H Sherman

San Marino, California and Cambridge, England

The commonplace book was one of the principal ways in which readers, writers and orators of the English Renaissance managed a rapidly growing body of textual information.

Used originally in the intellectual culture of Renaissance Humanism by Erasmus and his contemporaries the commonplace book was a means for recording notable passages, observations and inventions. The book being arranged to a set of agreed topics or subjects - loci communes or common places.

By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the use of these books became increasingly popular covering the full spectrum of Renaissance culture from logic, physics and alchemy to receipts, proverbs and fables. Today they provide fascinating and illuminating evidence about the lives of Tudor and Stuart men and women, and their professional, domestic and intellectual activities.

Our initial offering of Renaissance Commonplace Books did not feature sources from the Sloane Collection, as the lack of a printed catalogue rendered the selection of sources extremely difficult.

However, following a detailed examination of the original manuscript catalogue we can now offer over 90 volumes of commonplace books and carefully compiled miscellanies which tell us much about the reading practices and popular culture in Britain from 1570-1750.

There is material on alchemy, antiquities, books, fables, fashion, gardening, history, law, literature, logic, mathematics, medicine, natural history, physics, politics, proverbs, receipts, religion, trade and the art of writing.

The earliest volume is the commonplace book of a Christ Church scholar, 1570-1590, and there are wonderful works compiled by Nathaniel Highmore, Daniel Foote, James Stanley, Henry Power, Thomas Browne, James Petivar and Abraham Hill.

There are also some remarkable miscellanies compiled in manuscript by John Bagford on the art of printing, the art of writing and on London. Another noteworthy item it the volume of poetry by Thomas Carew.

Students studying in any area of Renaissance culture will find much of interest in this collection which supplies fascinating and crucial evidence into the reading practices and culture of the period.

Two other publications in our series on Renaissance Commonplace Books include selections from the Huntington Library and the British Library. There is no duplication with our existing publication of the Sloane Collection (History of Science and Technology, Series One).