Cotton's library : the many perils of preserving history
Matt Kuhns (Author)
"Traces the fortunes and misfortunes of the collection of 17th-century courtier Sir Robert Cotton. The highlights of Cotton's library include some of the most important documents of Anglophone civilization: the sole manuscript sources of 'Beowulf' and 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ' two of four surviving 1215 copies of Magna Carta, and the masterfully illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels ... If the Cotton library is a collector's dream, however, the history of the library often approaches a bibliophiles's horror story. Cotton served time as a prisoner, twice, on charges concealing royal discomfort with his library's ties to political critics. King Charles I locked up the library itself in 1629. Through the centuries that followed, war, intrigues, neglect, corrupt library-keepers and later collectors' poaching all threatened the collection's ruin repeatedly. With some tragic exceptions, though, the Cotton library has survived them all"--Back cover
Print Book, English, 2014
Lyon Hall Press, Lakewood, Ohio, 2014