LOST LIBRARIES: THE DESTRUCTION OF GREAT BOOK COLLECTIONS SINCE ANTIQUITY; ED. BY JAMES RAVEN

This Volume Of Essays Explores The Destruction Of Great Libraries Since Ancient Times And Examines The Intellectual, Political And Cultural Consequences Of Loss. The Resonances Of Loss / James Raven -- Lost Libraries Of Ancient Mesopotamia / Jeremy Black -- Aristotle's 'peripatetic' Library / T. Keith Dix -- Text To Trophy: Shifting Representations Of Regiomontanus's Library / Richard L. Kremer -- The Corvina Library And The Lost Royal Hungarian Archive / Martyn Rady -- Habits Of Manuscript-collecting: The Dispersals Of The Library Of Humfrey, Duke Of Gloucester / David Rundle -- 'the Manuscripts Flew About Like Butterflies': The Break-up Of English Libraries In The Sixteenth Century -- Secularization And Monastic Libraries In Austria / Friedrich Buchmayr -- Lost Royal Libraries And Hanoverian Court Culture / Clarissa Campbell Orr -- Revolutionary Seizures And Their Consequences For French Library History / Dominique Varry -- A Plague Of Books: The Dispersal And Disappearance Of The Diocesan Libraries Of The Church Of Ireland / Margaret Connolly -- The Lost Jewish Libraries Of Vilna And The Frankfurt Institut Zur Erforschung Der Judenfrage / Sem C. Sutter -- China's Roosevelt Library / Rui Wang And Yulin Yang -- China's Destruction Of The Libraries Of Tibet / Rebecca J. Knuth -- Burn The Books / Robert J. Fyne. Edited By James Raven. Based On Papers Originally Delivered Sept. 2000 At A Cambridge Project For The Book Trust Conference Held At Magdalene College, Cambridge. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction: The Resonances of Loss....Pages 1-40 Lost Libraries of Ancient Mesopotamia....Pages 41-57 Aristotle’s ‘Peripatetic’ Library....Pages 58-74 Text to Trophy: Shifting Representations of Regiomontanus’s Library....Pages 75-90 The Corvina Library and the Lost Royal Hungarian Archive....Pages 91-105 Habits of Manuscript-Collecting: The Dispersals of the Library of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester....Pages 106-124 ‘The Manuscripts flew about like Butterflies’: The Break-Up of English Libraries in the Sixteenth Century....Pages 125-144 Secularization and Monastic Libraries in Austria....Pages 145-162 Lost Royal Libraries and Hanoverian Court Culture....Pages 163-180 Revolutionary Seizures and their Consequences for French Library History....Pages 181-196 A Plague of Books: The Dispersal and Disappearance of the Diocesan Libraries of the Church of Ireland....Pages 197-218 The Lost Jewish Libraries of Vilna and the Frankfurt Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage....Pages 219-235 China’s Roosevelt Library....Pages 236-246 China’s Destruction of the Libraries of Tibet....Pages 247-260 Burn the Books....Pages 261-274 Back Matter....Pages 275-294 This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of the loss of books. Fourteen original studies, introduced by a re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent pillage and burning in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq. Leading international scholars ask what it means to lose the literary heritage and accumulated knowledge of a nation or people, why the devastation of library buildings and collections have stayed in the imagination, and why certain losses and the myths created about them are often not as simple or even as extensive as might at first seem. This collection represents a fresh appraisal of library history, offering both a highly topical and innovative cultural study in the history of books and knowledge Annotation This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss. Fourteen original contributions, introduced by a major re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent horrifying pillage and burning of books in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq